Michigan State 82 - Oakland 66
12/27/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 27, 2008
EAST LANSING, Mich. -
Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo
Opening Statement:
"I have to say I am as pleased with the preparation that carried over to the game situation in a while. Coming back on Christmas Eve and night is not easy and with our guys we put emphasis on free throws, emphasis on three-point shooting and a big emphasis on cut-outs. Many people will look at the game and say, 'Michigan State is supposed to beat Oakland.' That is a very good Oakland team. They had a little trouble figuring out what to do with Nelson and we've been through that with Dahlman (Isaiah) and Goran (Suton). It's a little hard, but we took what we worked on, shot the ball better and had great patienece. Kalin Lucas played his best game as a Spartan and that might not show on the stats sheets, but he controlled the game, pushed it on the break and defended pretty well. I thought he did a great job. We had a couple of breakdowns defensively, but for the most part, they (Oakland) are one of the better offensive rebounding teams that we've played. We worked on cutting out and dominated the boards early and held them to six, which was great. Three-point shooting was really good and defensively, we were pretty good, through we gave some up late, I thought we did pretty good. Greg's got a nice team and I really like this team. I watched them on film a lot and they played a brutal, brutal schedule, as good of a schedule as anybody. I think they're ready to make a great run in their conference. They just need to get together and figure out what Nelson's going to do. It's a little tough on him right now, which makes it a little tough on Greg."
On the performance of Kalin Lucas:
"I told him as the game wound down that, 'You won't believe this because you wanted it to be with 25 points and 15 assists, but that was the best game you played here.' For what I wanted him to do, he was so poised. He played under control and pushed the ball. At times, out guys can be unselfish, so this could be a good reference point because as we know, it gets a little tougher for us now. When you talk about coming back late at Christmas and trying to go two-a-days yesterday and schedule a game after being off for five days against a good opponent, I couldn't be prouder and as most of you know, that's not normally the way I feel."
On Durrell Summers getting confidence:
"It's a shame with him and Chris (Allen) because Chris had some open looks early and I think if we get those two guys going together, we can really be a lot more electric team, as far as athleticism goes. We ran some good stuff out of time outs and got him some shots in that stretch. He's starting to play a little better defensively and I think he's starting to focus in and if he does, we have a lot of steps we can climb because he's just scratching the surface."
On Delvon Roe's injury:
"My heart went down to my big toe and I say that because I felt I needed to play him a little more because we're still struggling with him and Goran and he gets so tired at times. I'm trying to get him more minutes and but it was his ankle, not his knee. I'm not saying it's good, but there was no problem with the knees and, knock on wood, the ankle will respond. I just don't know how bad it is yet."
On Goran Suton's contributions:
"He might be the first to tell you that as many good things as he's done, he's gone a little brain-dead on me for a guy who is probably my smartest basketball player. As he says, he's getting tired faster than he liked to and he's had a lot of time off. We're still a time away from where we want him to be, but thank God we have enough bodies. I didn't play Idong (Ibok) as much because of their zone and he doesn't do well against a zone. He will be playing more, just when we play certain teams. No doubt with G, with those rebounds that he got, and Raymar (Morgan), I'm proud of him. He got his 1,000th point and maybe not one of his best games, but he also has nine rebounds and five assists. I thought he played pretty good, too. We had a lot of guys that played pretty good, pretty solid basketball."
On whether MSU is where they want to be:
"We're right where I thought we would be, record-wise. I hope for 10-1 and you dream of 11-0. With 9-2, looking at the teams we played on the road and with the injuries we've had, I was thinking 9-2 with Suton and we played most of it without him. Record-wise, we're where we want to be, but basketball-wise, we are not even close. I don't if that's the good news or bad news, but that has to change quickly. It's nobody's fault and I've said it all along, the construction we're doing at Christmastime, we should be doing at Thanksgiving. Our fine-tuning might come a little bit later, but it's just the way it has to be. I think our players do deserve some credit, and it sounds like excuses, but we had two pretty good guys out. But they're back now and maybe in the next few weeks or month, I'll remember what the inside of Breslin looks like again."
On watching Lansing residents Nelson, Jones and Kangas play:
"You know, I was asked earlier if I felt Johnny (Jones) and Raymar would ever reach 1,000 points in their careers. I said I'd love to see Raymar do it and I'd love to see Johnny do it, as long as we won. I've known him since he was in fifth grade and his family, they are great people. I think the world of the kid and I think he's done a heck of a job and I think Greg's done a job with him. I think with Nelson, I know exactly what he's going through because I've had a couple of guys like that. I don't even know if he's healthy enough to play or if he has a chance to redshirt yet. But, if can come back, I think that's a heck of a player and he's a tough matchup. If you miss the whole preseason, you're going to be talking January before he comes back regular. I feel for him. Kangas, I didn't know as well, but what that kid has done has been amazing. We gave him the same prep we gave A.J. Abrams from Texas. Those might be two of the better shooters that I've seen in the country. I thought he did a pretty good job today. He got the best we could give him and he still hung in there. I have great respect for all of them, as I do Greg. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that a guy that has come a long way is (Keith) Benson. He's come a long way, too. This is a team that, I don't want to put pressure on Greg, I believe has a chance to win that league and I hope they do.
Oakland University Head Coach Greg Kampe
Opening Statement:
"I'm pretty disappointed in the way the game ended. It was 26-26 with a few minutes to go in the half, and we had a freshman drive the ball and try to make a spectacular play, which led to a turnover and a layup. We made some bad decisions defensively where we let the ball get into the middle of the defense, the middle of the zone, which is designed to keep the ball out of the middle and make them shoot outside shots. They got the ball in the middle, and made kick passes, and then we can't guard that. When the ball goes from the inside out, it's very difficult to guard, and they got some open looks. Some guys that were okay shooters got comfortable, they made some shots, and then they went on an 18-4 run to end the half, and that was the game. I think in the second half they were two, three, four, maybe five points better than us. That last five minutes, and it all started with a couple turnovers, I think a lot of it is my fault because I tried to force-feed Derick Nelson into the game. The most important thing for our team, as it is for Michigan State, is to win the league. We open our league next week and we want to get Derick Nelson ready to play. I knew it might not be good for him to do it, but we did it anyways. You can criticize me for that, or be mad at me for that, but I'm thinking about the future and what we've got ahead of us, so I decided to start him and get him a few minutes. Obviously it was a struggle for him."
On the magnitude of the game, having a good number of Lansing-area players on the team:
"We signed a kid early from the area, and we want to continue to recruit Lansing hard because it's been very good to us. Johnathon Jones is going to have 1,000 points in the next game or two, and we'll have three 1,000-point scorers on the floor, and they're all from Lansing."
On what the team will take from today's game:
"I think it hurts (Jones) probably the most, I think we all felt that we could win. We still feel we could have won. It just wasn't going to be today. They made shots, and in that 18-4 run, we had two shots that went halfway in and came out. Waterdtradt and Cushingberry both had threes that went in and out. It just wasn't meant to be. The key to that is we've got to let it go and get ready for our league which starts now."
On the comparison between last year's MSU team and this year's squad:
"I think they've gone through similar things to us in losing Suton. They proved today they are better with him. They will start now to become the team they thought they were going to be. They are a lot different. You're not chasing a kid around that can make a three from anywhere. You're not chasing (Drew) Neitzel. I'm not going to sit here and anoint them as the world champions, or anything like that. I think they have a very good team, I think they're a team in development. They've got some young perimeter players, and he's trying to figure out who's going to be there.He plays a lot of players, and they want to play fast. It's unusual for a Michigan State team. In the old days, when they had (Mateen) Cleaves and those guys, they would fly it up the floor to Charlie Bell and they would make plays, but if it wasn't there, they would stake it out and run fourteen different plays all at once. So this team is really different. It's more of a unique Michigan State team."
On what made the difference in today's game:
"That was huge. There were three keys for us going in; one was that we couldn't turn the ball over, we call it interceptions for touchdowns - we can't turn the ball over where they can get it and go. The second thing is offensive rebounds. And the third key was keeping the ball in front of us. We couldn't let Kalin Lucas get by us because he's a good passer, and we wanted to make them shoot shots. I can think of a play where we did a great job defensively, there's almost no time left on the shot clock, and Durrell Summers has the ball. He shot-fakes, and Drew Maynard jumps in the air 40 feet from the basket, instead of just staying on the ground and making him shoot a shot through us. He gets a dribble, gets wide open, and buries a three. We guard for 35 seconds as well as you can guard, and it's just those types of little things. We have some young players that have to learn, and the only way they're going to learn is to make mistakes. I have to believe that's not going to happen to Maynard again."
On the development of Keith Benson:
"He's turning into quite a player. I really challenged him yesterday. I told him that (MSU) had the Michigan tape, and there was no way he would get 23 points against MSU, because they've got nine guys that are going to come in there, and every time he touched the ball they would try to break him in half. I think he really handled the challenge well today. I think as a post player, he's proving that before he's done he'll be able to play anywhere. We have to get him the ball more. We're not sure if he's what he was last year or what he's shown lately. I tell people that big men develop fast, and we've just got to keep getting him the ball. The more he gets it, the better he's going to get, and there's nobody in our league that has anything like that. If he can continue to improve, it's going to be good. He has worked hard, and you have to give him a lot of credit."
On the emotional outcome of Nelson's return:
"He's pretty down right now. When Derick Nelson is 100 percent, he's hard to keep in front of you. And today he couldn't get by me. He's been in a boot for six weeks. I started him and maybe I shouldn't have, but he's a senior. He's a key player in our program, and this is Michigan State. I'm going to put him out there. He deserved to have his name announced and run out there at the beginning of the game. Maybe I put him in a bad situation, but I'd probably do the same thing tomorrow."
