Post Game Quotes: Iowa
1/14/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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Michigan State coach Tom Izzo
Opening Statement…
I wish I had some magical words. There is a lot of blame I am going to give us tomorrow, but right now I give a lot of credit to Iowa. They did everything they could do. They made shots, got rebounds. When you have 13 or 14 turnovers the first half, and they get 17 points off of them. When you look at the shooting percentages, they shoot one percent better than us and the rebounding was about even considering they got six on that one possession. But the tougher team won and that is usually what happens. It wasn't just the better shooting team that won, they shot well. I give them credit. The tougher team won. It's been a little bit of my frustration. I give [Anthony] Clemmons credit again. Not a very good shooter, hit two big 3's the first half. I think Fran [McCaffery] hit a three the first half. They had a lot of 3's, and a couple of them were guarded and a couple of them weren't guarded. That was the difference in the game. I thought our crowd tried to hang right in there with us to the four-minute mark. They did a lot more than we did. It was really disappointing. Denzel [Valentine] is not back to normal, which we know, but I got decent play out of [Matt] Costello, decent play out of Deyonta Davis and Javon Bess. Other than that, I don't think we played very well.
On Iowa…
I told Franny after the game, I thought for years that he's tough, but I didn't think his teams were as tough, personally. I just think they played harder. They made shots, but they got every loose ball. It seemed like there were some weird calls, and yet I laugh because I am complaining about it, but it's just what you learn when you're in fifth grade. The most aggressive team gets things, and they did. I mean, I can't hide behind it. It hurts me to admit it, but they did it twice. [Bryn] Forbes was out of the game, I mean, he was just out of the game. You know, we're going to have to regroup. We've still got a good team, but it's a good team and they had a very good team. Those are four seniors that have done a lot.
The start of the game was interesting because Denzel [Valentine] hits the 3, they come down and we knew exactly where [Mike] Gesell was going and told our guys, and we didn't guard that. Denzel lost his man - fast break. [Peter] Jok gets a 3 right in front of our bench. Kind of set the tone for how the game went. We just didn't do our job.
On senior guard Bryn Forbes…
Bryn struggles when people are physical. I mean I've said that all along. We didn't get the ball inside enough. Matt [Costello] scored, pretty much, when we got it in there. We didn't do a very good job of getting it in there, but we just kept turning it over. I don't know how many chances we got. That's a ton of turnovers and you only get so many opportunities in a half. I think it was 12 [turnovers] in the first 12 minutes of the half. I mean, that's - that's unbelievable. There weren't any great steals, it wasn't because of the press. It was just bad decisions. Bryn's got a lot of work to do.
On whether there was anything in practice that indicated a poor performance…
Yeah, I've been concerned about one thing when Denzel came back. I said people are going to think that because Denzel's back, and I went through this two years ago, that you get guys back from injuries and sometimes guys rely just on that guy. But I brought Denzel in yesterday and I told him that I don't think we're playing tough enough. It's kind of funny, a lot of people have laughed at me over the years because I want to be a football team on hardwood. You saw one, it just wasn't us. Right now we are going to change our lineup a bit. There's nothing to panic over, but we're going to find some guys that want to compete. We need to do a better job coaching them, a better job coaching them in practice. But no, nobody missed curfew, nobody did anything wrong, it was just a flat-butt kicking to be honest with you.
On trying to find the right combination of players during the game…
When Denzel and Forbes aren't making shots, it gets tougher on Tum Tum. We really thought that Schilling would have a good matchup, but he struggled. He didn't rebound very well. So now we have a couple non-shooters in there. I thought Harris was okay, he just didn't shoot it very well. He played hard anyway. Deyonta is going to earn his minutes. I was trying to find some lineups and you shouldn't want to find them in the game, you should find them in practice. And we'll have to do a better job in practice as coaches and sure that up a bit. We're 16-2 not 2-16. We've beaten some good people. Basketball is about matchups, and we just didn't matchup very good with this team.
On his reaction to the Iowa Hawkeyes' physicality…
Surprise, I was surprised. When they got the first couple of loose balls and turned them into baskets, it was surprising. We'll change that. Practices will get more fun.
On the difference between Iowa and past opponents' (Florida, Louisville) physicality…
Those other teams have more athletes. Jok is a good athlete; he's not like Florida or Louisville athletes. And Gesell, they're not great athletes, they're just tough kids. Uthoff hit some good shots, but he was 5-18. They played better defense. I think they're getting a lot out of Uhl and Baer. Those are young kids playing their roles. And they're bigger, 6-8, 6-7. They defend pretty well, they move their feet pretty well, they get a lot out of those kids.
On what Deyonta Davis gained from playing a tough matchup…
Deyonta did some good things. We had to put him on Uthoff, which isn't a good matchup for him, but he did some good things. He moved his feet better than some of our guys did. Deyonta is a guy who we keep saying we're going to play more. He stayed out of foul trouble. He got into a little bit at the end. He got six rebounds and he was active. He's not the toughest kid in America but he was active. His minutes are going to go up drastically.
