Michigan State 75, Kansas 62
1/10/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 10, 2009
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 
MICHIGAN STATE MEN'S BASKETBALL
MSU vs. Kansas
Post-Game Quotes
Jan. 10th, 2009
Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo
Opening Statement...
That was as good a first half of basketball that we've played in a while. I showed our team a little clip of a couple years ago when we played UConn here and tried to get the energy level that you need to play in big games. After Kansas started out really well - they had 11 points quickly - they went a long time without scoring a lot of points. I credit that to good defense on our part and I thought my assistants did a good job on how we were going to cover those hundreds of ball screens that they do such a good job on.
You have to give Kansas a lot of credit too. I thought Bill (Self)'s team is tough, physical, and they're young. They could have collapsed in the second half and they didn't. At the same time, you have to give us a little blame. When are we going to learn to finish games? We haven't done a great job of finishing games. I thought (Travis) Walton did a good job on (Sherron) Collins - he's just a good player. We took some of the screens away. I thought (Kalin) Lucas played awfully well, especially in the first half. Other than shooting the ball very well, I thought we did a lot of things well and it was against a quality team. They're young, they're going to be awfully good, I think still this year, they're going to be really good in the future, and Collins and (Cole) Aldrich are as good a twosome as we've faced and probably will face. Kansas is for real. I thought we played awfully well in the first half and not as well in the second.
On Idong Ibok's defensive play...
It was really good in the first half. We all kind of fell asleep in the second half a little bit. ID (Idong Ibok) did a great job. One game he doesn't play at all because they're playing zone and maybe smaller guys, and a couple of these big games he's had to play quite a few minutes. Believe it or not, in practice this week he did the best job of covering those ball screens. Our energy level went down a bit too, and that hurt ID in the second half. I don't think our guards covered quite as well. You have to give (Goran) Suton a lot of credit too because he was throwing up all night and sicker than a dog. It was really a turning point for him because he sucked it up and he played as hard as he could play. Those two guys made a big difference in there. (Cole) Aldrich didn't get a lot of shots, I thought we had body on him most of the time. I don't know how many rebounds he ended up with, but he is a good player and a player who is going to be making big noise in that league before the year's over.
On the number of early substitutions...
We tried to sub for G (Goran Suton) early because we knew he wasn't feeling great. We wanted to make sure that we kept some of our guards fresh. I thought we really needed Raymar Morgan. We took him out and put him right back in just to go over some things. He's an important player to this team. He struggled some in this game, but I guess we have enough players that someone will rise to the top. We had some guys today who played awfully well. Even Draymond Green came in and gave us some good minutes, and Delvon (Roe) did some good things. As I said we're still not the smooth package yet, but we're chugging along and we're doing it in good fashion.
On what he told the team during Kansas' second half run...
I told them to quit fouling, and then they did that and that didn't matter. That was the big thing we did at the end - we fouled a lot, and I know we made most of our free throws down the stretch, but we didn't execute well in that period. Stepping in, a couple free throws, then a rebound comes off and I guess it went off us and they got a basket out of that. Leads can dissipate quickly, especially when it's a good team. I think when a team comes in here unranked - if that isn't a top-25 team - I know they didn't play well in the first half and like Bill (Self) said he thought we did, but that's a good team. We've played a lot of ranked teams so far and they're every bit as good. They're just young. They're going to make some mistakes, but they're going to be really good.
Kansas head coach Bill Self
On what went wrong in the first half...
Everything. Actually, I thought we were really ready to play and played great the first five minutes. I think we had 11 points the first time out, but we hadn't really stopped them. They [Michigan State] had nine themselves, but we played well and after that we just didn't play a lick. We missed shots and then we got tentative. In that stretch where they went on a run, we had two dunks and a missed layup that was pretty uncontested, and that immediately became points for them on the other end. We just can't do that on the road. You need to make the most of your opportunities. We could get to the free throw line and skim the tide a little bit, but they were great there from the 15 minutes mark to the rest of the half. They were terrific and we played about as poorly as we could play. Then in the second half, we actually came out and competed hard. I'm not saying we played great, but we competed hard. Then Sherron [Collins] missed a three to cut it to six, and maybe that would've made them sweat, but obviously we didn't put enough pressure on them.
On what he did to adjust to the game...
I'm looking for anything. Markieff [Morris] got three fouls and then Mario [Little] got two quick fouls. I wanted to give Marcus [Morris] a chance and he wasn't as effective as I'd hoped. Quintrell [Thomas], to me, played pretty well in the first half. When you're playing that poorly, why don't you try something? That's what we tried to do. Obviously we didn't score points from it, but second half I did think we did do some good things. But the first half we stunk and they made us look bad.
On what he thought of point guards Sherron Collins and Kalin Lucas...
Let me be clear, I love Sherron [Collins] but you said point guard, and Kalin [Lucas] to me, does a great job of running Michigan State's team. Sherron was put in a bad situation today, because when we can't score, he tries to take it on himself to go score. He turned it over too much, especially in the first half. I thought Sherron played very well in the second half not because he made shots, but because he was more under control and aggressive. I think Lucas is a fabulous player. If you look at the stats, we outscore Michigan State in the paint and we do some things that you wouldn't think we would've done based on the score. They made shots in the first half that really separated themselves from us, and Kalin [Lucas] was a big part of that. He had like 11 points with 13 minutes left in the first half.
On Cole Aldrich's performance...
Thirty-six minutes is a lot of minutes for a big fellow to play. He's a really good player, but we're not doing enough to help him out. I don't think the guards are doing enough to help Sherron [Collins] and I don't think the wings are doing enough to help Cole out. I thought Markieff [Morris] was once again ready to play, he just takes himself out of the game with foul issues. Being very candid, I expected that we would probably have more help for him at this early juncture. They're freshman though. They're young and they haven't figured it out. There's still time for us to get it, but we've been very inconsistent.
On where the team is now compared to what he thought...
I think we didn't play well today and give Michigan State credit. I thought the crowd was good in the first half, but I think we played about to the level that I thought we would play to. I didn't think we'd be great by conference play starting. I still think we can have a really good season, a really good year. I don't think our record's quite as good as I thought. I was hoping our record would be 12-3, but we're 11-4. We gave a couple of games away that we shouldn't have, but I don't think I can say that I expected us, with this young team, to come up here and just control the game from start to finish. I didn't expect that. I was expecting that we would play well and hang around, and hopefully have a chance late. That didn't happen, but I think we're playing about where I thought we would play. I think the 15 minutes in the first half was about as bad as we've looked all year.
