Post Game Quotes: Northwood
10/27/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo
Opening statement...
One of the things I talked to our guys about before the game was about how we had a lot of new bodies. It's not just the freshmen, it's the sophomores, juniors, and seniors, too. Everyone has a new role and you never know how someone is going to react to their new role. Whether it's Eron Harris having to step up and be the man, or Kenny Goins having to go from a sub to a starter. I was just disappointed in the first half, because I didn't think we did well with any of the things that we worked on in practice. I thought we would shoot the ball poorly, but we shot the ball very well. We didn't do the effort-related things. You have to play defense and you have to rebound. It's older than sin. That doesn't change in any years that I'm here, or anywhere else with teams that are any good. We gave up some layups and wide open threes. And yet, a couple of guys responded. Cassius (Winston) - I jumped on him a little bit. He had to be better defensively. That second half he did a much better job. (Matt) McQuaid, it's hard to tell. He was in foul trouble the whole time. When you don't get much out of your three guys - McQuiad, (Alvin) Ellis, and (Eron) Harris - it's hard to get things going. At the same time our best defender, Josh Langford, was out with a little hamstring pull. Plus, he's one of our better rebounders. I thought Northwood, to be honest with you, played really well. They made some incredible shots. I know everybody in the room thought about Middle Tennessee. I did. I was going to call a timeout if they scored one more. I wasn't going to let (the lead) get to 15 this year. I thought they did a nice job moving the ball and running. Very well-coached team. I give them a lot of credit. So, not sure how disappointed I should be in anything other than the effort-related stuff. And that, I should be extremely disappointed in because it doesn't matter what grade you're in or what you're doing, that should be a constant. I'll say I'm disappointed in that, but I was impressed with the fact that you have a guy like Winston who puts up 9 assists in a game. That's pretty good for a freshman. Plus, he made some shots. I thought he played pretty well. I thought Bridges played decent. No, but he did it all within the framework of what he was doing. Very smooth and comfortable. We posted him some, we put him at the three some, we let him handle the ball some. So I think he fit into what we said we were going to do with him. And he handled that very, very well. The most exciting play of the night for him wasn't those monster dunks - it was his pass to Kyle Ahrens for the dunk. And that's kind of what I love about the kid. Has to get better defensively, too. Took some time off out there, but, did a lot of good things.
On Miles Bridges' unselfish nature ...
He was happy when he sees these other people's success. And I guess when you're 12-of-14, you should be happy no matter what happens. But, at the same time, I thought he handled everything and stayed in the flow. Didn't force a lot of stuff. Fun to be able to take a kid like that and move them all around. Put him in the middle, put him in the post, put him on the perimeter. Moved him around a lot. To his credit, he just let the game come to him and made some big time plays. I don't think he forced one shot. And that's pretty good.
On Nick Ward and the plans for the frontcourt's playing time...
It's tough to say with Nick. He might have played even more minutes than that. The guy that didn't play as well as I think he's been playing is Kenny Goins. If they're going to go 20 and 20, Nick might have to go a few more minutes. I thought he did a decent job staying out of foul trouble. One of the things I thought he would do was get to the line and he did. He's been shooting it pretty well. He can rebound the ball. He's big and he doesn't look out of shape. He's lost a lot of weight. He has a lot of work to do defensively, but that is what most freshmen have to do anyways. He's making some progress, but we need Kenny to play better than he did. Between the two of them, that's about what you can expect, yeah. Gavin (Schilling), were still waiting on.
On the point guard situation ...
This team was a little smaller than the ones we'll be playing in a week and a half. I didn't think it was bad. I don't think Tum (Nairn) can take nine shots. He was three-for-nine, and has been shooting it a lot better. But McQuaid has to get some of those, Harris has to get some of those, and even Cassius has to get some of those. We have to define the roles a little bit better here. It was just one of those things where I think Tum feels like they're going to sag off of him. We didn't run a lot of things today. We have some packages that will exploit people that do that to Tum.
On Bridges and Ward taking so many shots...
Knowing that would have startled me a little bit. I did say that Nick [Ward] was a poor man's Zach Randolph in every way, including how he guards. I told Zach that on the phone the other night. He's got to get better in that area, but he can score in the post. You didn't even see the jump-hooks. He can do a lot of things. I've been impressed with Nick. He came in here and lost 26 pounds now, or whatever he's lost. He's done a heck of a job in a lot of ways. As I told him in the locker room just now, is if we're going to use him against good teams and we're going to play him minutes, we are not like half of the schools in the country that get to play six games against not as good teams. We are going to be under fire. One more game and then it gets a little crazy here for seven out of eight games. That's what I have to make my team understand. I'm not about winning or losing all of them, but that should really motivate them to care about all aspects of the game. We had a freshman moment and when I say that I mean that some of our juniors had freshman moments and seniors had freshman moments. The effort that we played with - it also hurt us not to have [Joshua] Langford in there. He is bigger, stronger, athletic and by far the best defensive guard we've got right now.
On playing three freshman in the start of the second half...
I kind of went into it with a game plan of what I wanted to do. I wanted to play the two smalls guards together some, that was part of the game plan. I wanted to have certain lineups in there a couple different times. That's the advantage of exhibition games - you can do that. I think we did okay. The way I'm talking, I'm not giving Northwood enough credit. They had a couple of shots with guys right in their face. They were very opportunistic. Those kids - that was Christmas and Fourth of July - they played with some passion. I didn't think we played with as much passion, but we'll improve that, I promise you.
On what he gets from exhibition games as opposed to scrimmages...
I talked about that and I have to think of what's best for a couple people. What's best for Michigan State, number one. What's best for young guys getting out there and playing, number two, and I also look at being a division two guys myself, the help that we can give division two schools. I would have given my right arm to play an exhibition game here. Does it help us quite as much? I don't think in competition, but I think our guys learned tonight too that they can't get caught up in the lights or the crowd. You wouldn't get that if it was a scrimmage. Maybe the perfect world - one of each? We'll get a lot out of this film.
On Joshua Langford not playing...
We just talked about how sad it was because he could have been getting minutes. I also told him that he's in college now and it was a gray area on if he could play or not. The hardest thing to coach is how hard to push somebody. If you're hurt, you have to play. If you're injured, you never should play. I think it's important Josh gets some time out there because I think he is a good player and will help us a lot. I think he needs to get some time. I see no reason for him not to play next week. If he doesn't play next game, then his first game is against Arizona and his second is against Kentucky and that's not very healthy either.
On the amount of offense drawn up towards Miles Bridges...
It's not a lot of him just getting the ball and going believe it or not. He did a lot of things with it, but along the lines of what we wanted him to do. Some timeouts we posted him up, other timeouts we put him in the high post. We moved him around and I thought he handled that part pretty well. Now, he has a little more freedom than some guys do. On the break he can go with it because he makes pretty good decisions. He's still got some work to do and I told him this on the bench, `Don't get enamored by what's happening. I'm proud of you.' I thought he played hard, I thought he played un-selfish, I thought he made shots and they were shots that were ready-shoot shots. He moved and put himself in position. To be honest, I was proud of the way Miles played. I bet other freshman that have played good, but in my mind a little more selfish. He only took 14 shots. That's more than he will probably get in a lot of games, but maybe not. But he didn't take 20 shots to get his 30 points. He took 14 shots. He is a great player, but an even better kid right now and I think he will be coachable enough to work on his defense and work on his rebounding. If he does those two things, he's got a pretty good feel for the game. He's not Denzel, but you can see in some of the passes and plays he made that he's really good and one of the more versatile players we've ever had because he's strong enough to post up, he's athletic enough to plant the perimeter, he handles the ball well enough. He's a fun kid to coach.
Northwood Coach Jeff Rekeweg
On Miles Bridges ...
Where do you start? He made his first seven shots at least,2-for-2 from three and 7-for- 7 from the field. I think I even heard or read something where Coach Izzo talked about that, that kid is not a kid, he is a man. His understanding of the game, just the way he carries himself. It's beyond any freshman that I've ever seen before, and I had the good fortune to see it live with my players. He did a great job.
On what he liked and learned about his team...
Well, we came into this just talking about one possession at a time and defensively making it as tough as possible. I thought that there were some times that we did pretty well defensively, and they were just so good offensively that they were able to score over us. I was pleased with that. Michigan State is one of the best rebounding teams in the country. I thought that was definitely one of our focuses and through the first half. We had the advantage on the board, so I was really pleased with our guys' effort on the defensive and offensive boards keeping some things alive. I was pleased with our effort, and it was just one of those things where as soon as we got undisciplined, whether it was jumping in the air, missing a block-out, not getting back on defense, allowing straight-line drives that they expose in a hurry. At our level, we might be able to get away with that every once in a while playing a well-coached team, hall of fame coach. You're not going to get away with that.
On the team benefit of playing Michigan State...
We have a bunch of players on our team that their dream was to play at the Big Ten level or at a Michigan State. For our players, it's great for them to get to play against those types of guys and be in this type of environment. We've been fortunate; this is the third Big Ten team we've played in four years. We played Illinois and Indiana, but being a Michigan school with most of our kids from Michigan, this is special. It's special for me because the last six years I've gotten to know Coach Izzo. Dane Fife I've known for a long time, Mike Garland, I'm getting to know him to recruit. I mean it's just a class program. You don't get into the Hall of Fame by accident. The types of people that Coach Izzo surrounds himself with speaks volumes. The program, for us to see how things are done right at the highest level is awesome, and so is the exposure for our university and for our program. Coach Izzo didn't have to do this so we certainly appreciate the opportunity to come here and the way we've been treated. We love it.
