Michigan State 68, Milwaukee 55
11/23/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 23, 2011
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Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo
Opening Statement...
First of all that was a good team we played. I said I thought they'd be good, I think they were a little better than I even thought they would be because of their physical-ness. The big guys were all similar, they all could maybe do nothing great but they could make a shot, make a post move, they battled for rebounds, did a lot of good things. We did not seem to have the energy, we seemed like we were pretty tired. Even Draymond (Green), even though he had a pretty good game, he looked tired to me the whole game. The foul trouble killed us, and then I was forced to play him more minutes early when I was going to give him a rest. We had four starters on the bench with two fouls each early, that changed my whole rotation schedule and that wasn't good. All in all to bounce back and have a chance to go up 20, and again missing way to many free throws, getting to the line, executing our offense, getting it into the post. I thought Derrick Nix was very, very, very good. Austin Thornton did a lot of good things. We still have a lot of work to do but yet we beat a pretty good team tonight. I don't think we played our best and I think some of that was them and some of it was us.
On if it's good for (Branden) Dawson to see what happens when he doesn't play with full energy...
Well you know the thing is he's had great practices and I said to you earlier in the week this is our fifth game in 12 or 13 days and I think mentally he's a little bit overwhelmed. He had a very good practice and defensively he struggles a little bit. He had a couple backdoors they didn't complete, he got four rebounds, he was in foul trouble and that was part of it. I thought AP (Adriean Payne) was going to have a good game and he got in foul trouble so yeah (Branden) Dawson's learning but I'll say this, he's very receptive to learning. He understands it and we're starting to throw in some plays where we can get him the ball on the block a little bit. I thought he did a nice job there; we weren't real smooth Keith (Appling) has got to get better; he just has to get better. He gets another charge, I struggle with the charges, I struggled on some of theirs. Meaning the calls we got, it seems like everyone is falling down now if you're outside the thing there's charge, charge, charge, charge. I hope it doesn't get to that, we've taken more charges and we don't do that very well. So I worry about that and I think that hurt Appling but maybe that hurt Dawson too.
On Derrick Nix's progress in the last year...
That's a good word, most reliable. I'm really proud of Derrick (Nix) and I'll probably punch myself when I leave here because I don't want to give him too much credit. We're still a work in progress but I must admit I'm proud of him, his whole demeanor has changed. When you ask a kid to change his shot, or change his weight, or change this, or change that, you ask him to change who he is, kind of. He needed that, he needed to change and to his credit he has. He's deserves a lot of credit, I think some of the players who helped him deserve credit. Tonight we wanted to go to him, if you had been in the huddle the players wanted to go to him. He's come a long way in year and we still need to get him in tip-top shape. Now I think he's just tired because of the wear of the summer and fall for him but he's making progress. We need to get him rebound a little better because when he does go in there and rebound he goes over some people; I was surprised he got that one offense rebound over some guys. I'm proud of him I'm happy for him.
On Draymond (Green) coaching players on the floor...
I remember exactly when that happened, it was about a switching on a ball screen and I was trying to explain it and Day-Day (Draymond Green) even took the blame even though I knew some of it wasn't his fault, which I thought was good. He then told them exactly where he had to go and what he had to do. I think that was one of the problems, we had so many strange lineups, and we had (Russell) Byrd and (Austin) Thornton in there at the four Day-Day was trying to play traffic cop and I thought he looked bad sometimes. He was just out of position because he was trying to help other guys which he does pretty well because he understands the game so well. That was one of those moments and there were a couple of huddles. I thought Day-Day got a little frustrated tonight. That is a Wisconsin team coached by a Wisconsin guy which means they're going to step up under you, get the hands up and there was some contact but they do it very well. They're a very well coached team. He played through it so I thought Day-Day in his own way other than being tired did some good things tonight.
Closing Statement...
Not great but not bad. Pretty good team I think you'll find that team is going to win a lot of games. I'll be shocked if they aren't competing for that championship in the Horizon League, as I said a very well-coached team. We still got a lot of work to do, we're doing some good things but we're not consistently doing them that's what the next jobs going to be. I'm happy we're off. We're going to come back Friday and Saturday and play Sunday.
Milwaukee Head Coach Rob Jeter
Opening Statement...
I think we learned a lesson on not being patient; and when we're not patient, it compounds problems. With 19 turnovers, you're not going to win many games with that many turnovers. Michigan State did help us out with their turnovers and I just thought defensively, it was a real solid battle. Both teams shot under one point per possession, so that means that we had two teams getting after it defensively. We just couldn't get to the free-throw line and that was the main difference. If you can't get to the free-throw line, you're not going to win a lot of basketball games.
Despite the loss, is there anything you can take out of this going forward...
We did some good things. If you hold a team under a point per possession defensively, we're scrapping a little bit. Rebounding, we just tried to keep them off glass. We matched them with offensive rebounds. It's hard for me to say that I'm pleased because we want to keep them off the glass, but they're a tough team and I was pleased with some of the toughness we did show. But they got to the line 36 times and that is a credit to them. That is something that we are used to being able to do but weren't able to tonight.
Was it hard to get a flow with all of the charges...
It does disrupt the flow, but you have to give them credit. Michigan State really stuck their nose in there and stuck their chest in there and took some contact. We never got any flow in the second half and the starts of our second halves this year have been not very good. Again tonight, a back-door play right away, and on our first four possessions, we had two turnovers and that got the lead to 11 right away and put us on our heels. The flow for us in the second half was definitely choppy.
