Post-Game Quotes
11/10/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 10, 2008
EAST LANSING, Mich. -
Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo
Opening comments...
I'm guess I'm glad the exhibition season is over. I thought we played really well early on. I did not think our performance was as good as it was the other night even though the score was what it was. We started off really well. I did what I wanted to do. I got different line-ups in to start the first half and the second half. I wanted to see how that went, and I did try to play some strange line-ups. Some went well and some didn't go as well.
Kalin Lucas hurt his ankle a bit yesterday, nothing major, but it is one of the reasons we kept Kalin out. Yet, he still had five assists in the short period that he played. On the positive side, I thought he played really well. I thought we got a lot of shots up and we did a good job rebounding the ball. We also did a lot better job in the second half at not turning it over. Marquise Gray was a bright spot. Raymar Morgan has had a solid two games in a row where he has played well now. He shot the ball inside, he has shot the ball well from the three, he is making his free throws and he is rebounding the basketball both on the defensive and offensive ends without turning it over.
The negatives are that we didn't shoot very well from the field, from the three-point line, and most disappointing, the free-throw line, and that will be addressed tomorrow I can promise you because that was very disappointing with as much time as we spent on that. I thought our communication was terrible and that is why they had some wide open threes when we switched a lot, some of it was because of the different lineups, but communication is communication. I thought Durrell Summers and Chris Allen sometimes struggled.
There were a lot of bright spots and a few not so bright spots. There's a lot of work to do. I think we did do some things we wanted to do. We played a lot of people and got a look at everybody in a game situation. We got up a lot of shots in the last two games and those things were critical for us as far as what we wanted to accomplish.
On Korie Lucious...
Korie played well today. I didn't think he played as well defensively and that is going to be the problem because he is smaller. He can run the team pretty well. He can make some plays. You can tell defensively we missed Kalin Lucas' presence. He did a better job though. After a turnover early, that I thought was foolish, he had nine assists and he did a lot of good things. He didn't shoot it as well as I think he can shoot it. Definitely Kalin, Travis, Korie and Raymar all played pretty well. Delvon Roe did some good things and Chris did at times. Lucious put himself in the rotation because he has played well in both games.
On Marquise Gray...
He had a better night tonight. Eight for 10 (shooting), 11 rebounds, missed a couple free throws, but I thought he played pretty well. I still think he can go harder and longer. If he can do that, he changes from a guy that can help to a guy that can really be a guy in crunch time. I'm happy he took a step in the right direction, but there were some moments out there where he didn't play as well and I'm being critical of this because there are no tomorrows for him, he needs to go now and I think he will. He is way better and way ahead of where he was last year. He still has some stuff to work on.
On handling the exhibition games...
We're trying to make it a sense of urgency every time we step on the court. I said it a million times, when you lose a game or two that you really believe in your hear you shouldn't, you realize that takes you out of a championship contention. We have made more of an effort to make sure every time we are on the court we are getting more aggressive and there is more consistency. You can miss every shot you want. Any casualness or non-communication, that is why we pulled some guys. We have enough pieces to this puzzle to be really good as long as people are playing as well as they can play. They need to be scared of not playing hard. I think we are making steps. We have a week now in-between games and practices where I have seen a lot more consistency than I saw two weeks ago. A little bit of the problem we have had is with Goran Suton's injury. We need to get him going. He is a big key and last night he had one of his best practices and I thought he was okay tonight, but not as good as he has been. He has done really well this fall and we need to get him up to that next level.
Lake Superior State Head Coach Steve Hettinga
Opening comments...
Well obviously, we ran into a buzz saw tonight; a team that has far superior talent. I really felt like we hung in there for some spurts in the game, but our bad spurts were really, really bad spurts. A great team and a great program like that will take advantage of a team that doesn't play well in spurts. They went on some massive runs. Obviously, they crushed us on the glass, especially in the second half when they had 18 offensive rebounds. It was a little out of hand at that point. I was proud of our guys' effort. I was excited for the opportunity to come and play and I thought our guys, in spurts, showed some really good signs. [Give] lot of credit to Michigan State and the way they played. They really put it on us early and took us out of the game right away. It took our confidence in the first five minutes and we never really seemed to recover from that.
On Michigan State's defensive scheme...
I think they can obviously play a lot more players this year than maybe they have in years past. When you're up by 40, you can play a lot of guys, I guess, but they're definitely a lot deeper this year. I really liked some of the guys off the bench that are really big. I think they will get strong contributions from [Isaiah] Dahlman, I really liked him, and obviously Delvon Roe is a stud. They started two new guys today that would start at most other programs across the nation. I liked the way they played. They were very fast and they make it very tough on you to play your style of basketball. It will really pay dividends for them, especially when they are playing teams in the Big Ten who want to slow it down a little bit. They can play at a much faster pace than them.
