Post Game Quotes: Saginaw Valley State
11/2/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo
Opening statement…
I think we had moments of this game where we played awfully poor and inconsistent and had a lack of sustainability. I was very disappointed. We had a great start and a lot of energy, but we had six turnovers in a row and we only turned the ball over 10 times in the last game. 18 turnovers is just ridiculous, so that part was disappointing. Maybe some things came too easy in the first game. I thought we got some better play from Eron Harris aside from the turnovers. He got 9 rebounds and made some shots when we went to him early. I thought Cassius Winston played very well for a freshman. Miles has got to play both ends of the court and got to rebound better. But we have to get Josh Langford back in the lineup. You saw what we lacked with the ability to defend at that end and some of that is my fault. We are moving a lot of people around, so I knew what I was going to do with these two exhibition games and for the most part we did it and I had some predetermined lineups. When you do that, you are not going to be as efficient and we weren't. But, I was kind of disappointed in the grit we had or the least amount of grit I have seen in the last few years. Maybe it's the freshman getting acclimated, maybe it's the upperclassmen getting acclimated, but there has been a lot of scores last night from Indiana to Purdue. A lot of people struggled and did not rebound well, but we did rebound better against ironically a bigger team. Getting 10 offensive rebounds is good. Zero for Miles is insulting to him but our guys not guarding the dribble. But, I can't say that I'm too happy, but I do feel we got something out of it. Some fun practices in the next weeks, but I promise everyone here that we will compete with consistency.
On the scripted lineups…
Yeah I liked the start of the game. I didn't mind when Cassius and Tum were in the game together at times. Every time we had a couple of guys play good, McQuaid played well for a stretch and then went in the tank. Eron played well for a stretch, staying focused and not being completely out of control. One extremely disappointing thing is that I didn't think our quarterbacks took over the team and we have to do a better job of that and a better job coaching that. There were some breakdowns that the coaches have to take and I am going to. Getting the scouting report is one thing, but getting it to the team is another, who can shoot who can't. We have to do a much better job. Before I say that some of these guys didn't play as well, I didn't like the job that I did tonight and I'm going to take the first hit. There were players out of lineup that I don't know that I liked. Some I did like. Cassius I thought did a better job of running our team. But I cannot say that I liked a lineup more. I tried going with the bigger lineup in the second half. It was okay, but in fairness we had two players completely out of position and they did not pick up things as well. It's been an interesting preseason trying to figure out who will play and who will not play. Every time we got a lineup, we lost a play. Look at Josh, he would be a great stabilizer especially on defense, kind of like a Charlie Bell.
On playing both sides of the court…
It was as soon as we got a lead we got entitled. I hate that word. It's the most sickening in our society. It's oen that is there often and I thought we got very entitled like, 'This is the way that it's going to be.' We start going 1-on-1 and holding the ball and then number 4 can do one thing and he does it very well, he can shoot it. We did a decent job on him for the night, but for that stretch when we turned it over six times, he hit a few threes and that's the difference. Like when we went up 20, you can either blow it up to 30 and go somewhere or you can make a couple bad plays and a couple bad passes for a touchdown and then it's a 10-point game and that's how we played it.
On running the offense through McQuaid and Harris…
Well, I just think we have to be able to shoot the ball and those two are shooters. Harris shot better and McQuaid did not shoot better. But, when I said go through them, I mean if Miles makes his free throws and a couple of those layups, he would have had 28. We are still playing through Miles sometimes and we did a poor job of feeding the post, yet we had him inside we had him outside. You know, I think we are doing a good job with him and I think we are finding Eron Harris. We know we need him to score. He's got to be a 15-point scorer a game. McQuaid can score it, but he seemed to be a little scrubbish tonight to me like he just… missed the whole summer. Kid could not get better due to the surgery and he is still feeling his way right now. The only guy I didn't think we got the ball to enough was Miles. I didn't think we got the ball to Nick because I don't think Nick worked hard enough if you want the truth. He's got to work harder. He's the one guy who has to mature faster.
On if the sloppy play is due to start of season…
I hope so, but that is exactly it. Could not say it better. Sloppy play and missed free throws. When you turn the ball over six times in 3:41, when you do that and you miss a few free throws. Nick missed a few from the line and maybe he isn't working hard enough, but he will that's a promise. And some key guys missed a few. Miles missed a front end of a one-and-one and it was mostly Nick and Matt McQuaid missed a couple and those are my best free throw shooters. When you put the combination of the two together, sloppy defense and turnovers and missed free throws, 10-12 point leads could go to 20 and 15-point leads, or it could go to 9. That's what happens. I say all of that and I will say this, the two things that we got out of the preseason games are that we happened to play two teams that were very good at executing the offense. I thought Saginaw Valley was a little better and a little bigger, but very good at running their stuff. We covered the actions better than the one-on-one stuff. With the one-on-one stuff we just got lazy.
On the excessive amount of fouls…
You know it's funny, I don't know if when you get older or what goes on, but I decided that very seldom I'm going to complain. I can't control what they do. I said it two years ago, last year, that they are making the game better supposedly. Well, I think they're making it worse. It's a matter of opinion and it's not my say, but the consistency that these poor officials have to do every year, where there's two new rule changes - the verticality, the cylinder thing - all this stuff. I guess they are trying to make the game better so I am just going to play the game. Personally, I don't think that you want watch a free throw contest, I don't want to, the fans don't want to, and especially I don't think the players want it. But, for some reason, someone wants freedom of movement and as I told one of the NFL officials that was there tonight, it's like no one wants anyone to play defense anymore. That's the way it is, so I have to agree. I feel for them, but I feel numb to it at this point. And it's not the officials fault, and if I wanted to blame them I would. I don't blame them at all. It's the ones who come up with these rules. I think I only complained about two calls tonight if that. I'm immune to it.
On Miles Bridges' freedom on the court …
Oh yeah, he has the green light to get it and go. There is a responsibility with that though, you can't get four turnovers. He's definitely in our system, knows that that ball is going to Cassius or Tum, but if Miles gets the rebound he can go with it. We did have a few other guys who brought the ball down but made some turnovers. He has the freedom to do that and for the most part he makes pretty good decisions and really good plays.Tonight, I didn't think he was as aggressive. You can't get seven rebounds when you can jump up and touch the banners and I think he is disappointed. He knows he can get it and go with it, but I need more than seven rebounds out of him. He has to be more aggressive in every aspect of the game. But, he is a great kid to coach and it'll all come with time.
On playing time and rotations this season…
This is unchartered waters. We've never had four freshmen, never had four that played, or had to move so many people around. So, this is unchartered water. Like I said, the disappointment, sometimes you've heard it as 'paralysis by analysis', ends up meaning that you're thinking too much. I have people who call me, tweet me, and let me know that I have to give them more freedom on the court. This team tonight though, played with too much freedom. We were just going one-on-one a little too much because there wasn't a comfort level and we're going to have to adjust to that. I think the worst thing we did was set a screen so they were overplaying everything. Finally, we started running some back door plays and got something going. We just didn't execute our stuff very well tonight. At the same time, we shoot 54 percent from the field, 40 percent from the three, but we had 18 turnovers. Our offense wasn't good and our turnovers caused some opportune shots for the other team on the other end. Our defense was really good, then really bad. The other night we were average on defense, but tonight we were great or terrible. The sustainability is what we need to work on. Some of these teams with normal freshman-Duke and Kentucky are not on that list- are going through the same thing. We have three playing and then one of my best freshman should be playing by the end of the week.
Saginaw Valley State Head Coach Randy Baruth
Opening statement …
I want to thank Coach Izzo and his staff. This is our first year at Saginaw Valley, and you know you're around really good people when they're so down to earth and they've never met you. You're on the road and their entire staff comes over and right away introduces us all to the staff. They're a class act, and I really like watching their teams play. Much more watching them play than play against them, that's for sure. Very classy group of people.
On his gameplan to post up early and often …
Normally, we're trying to be an inside-out team. Most cases, the teams that we play, we're going to be the bigger team. So, our bigger lineup, we'll be playing two fours or fives, whatever you want to call it. We're usually a much larger team than the teams in our league. Obviously, with the size and stuff that Michigan State has, it makes it a much different situation, so we have to be more perimeter oriented. This was our first game playing with a big lineup, and I liked it. There were some really good stretches where we accomplished the things we need to do in order to get to march.
On what allowed them to climb back into the game …
Well, they had 18 turnovers, so I credit out guys for doing a great job trying to get them to turn the ball over. With any really good team that you play, it's really simple. Michigan State got their lead up to 15 or 20 points every time they got out in transition. Or they get a middle drive. And you give a middle drive, you're giving up transitions, you're giving up lobs and rebound because you're in rotation situations. We had mismatch situations where one time we had Dixon passed the switchout on (Cassius Winston), and he gets a wide open three.
On Michigan State's dual point guard approach …
Well, number 11 - I'm sorry I'm not good with names, I'm just a farmer from South Dakota. Number 11 (Tum Tum Nairn), if we played him a gain and had more time to scout, we'd really try to play off of him, honestly. If we played MSU again, there's no question we would be doubling the post off of (Nairn), and just see if he can make jump shots. If he beats us by making four or five threes, god bless you. With number 5 (Cassius Winston), it's hard because he's a really good player. We made the mistake of going under one ball screen, and he makes a three. He's not a guy you can play off of, but he's also not a guy you can really pressure into turning it over, either. But with (Nairn) we would have just been doing a lot more doubling, and helped off of him. And no disrespect to him, that's just what we would have done.
On the way the game is called these days …
It's hard. They're trying to do their job, and we're trying to do ours. We yell at our kids for not being physical in the post, and then they try to get physical and it's a foul. I always tell my guys, the first four or five games of the year, everything is going to be called tight. And then once conference play gets here, it's a bloodbath. And there will not be one call. I can think of multiple last year. I can give an example. One team last year, they shot 29 free throws in the second half. They shot two in the first half. So we're going from bloodbath, to you can't touch them. They're trying to do their job; we're trying to do ours. It's tough, no question. I think the thing that hurt the game more than anything was all the wet spots! You get a rebound and fall, or you try to get out in transition, and you're tripping. But that's obviously just the humidity, the crowd, things like that. Nothing anyone can do about that.
