Michigan State vs. Oral Roberts Quotes - Dec. 3, 2016
12/3/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo
On the play of his freshmen tonight …
We tried to experiment and see if we could play Nick (Ward) more minutes, and that didn't really go as well as you would think. He played one end of the court with a lot of passion, a lot of emotion, and didn't play the other end of the court very well. As soon as he got tired, that was a problem. But at least Nick competed. I thought Cassius (Winston) had his best game. I thought he ran the team better, and he did some things better. He guarded a little better, but there were no other freshmen that played very well. Mistakes we made at the end. We didn't play hard enough and we didn't play smart enough. The fouls we created, Josh (Langford), one of my smartest kids. I was really disappointed in our wings, I don't think they played very well at all. We're getting hurt on the boards, we're just not big enough. That team (Oral Roberts) is better than their record. I was worried about two things today. I was worried that we would just come back and play the game. We had all of those big games in a row, and maybe we would just take the night off and win the game, that worry came true. The other worry was how do we adjust now without Miles (Bridges). We are trying to work some guys in, start some guys, and do some different things. That didn't go too well. It was not very good. Don't be fooled by scoring. Our freshmen are getting better, but when we are fouling guys going around them when they're not even shooting or making a move to the basket, we did not play very smart. Cassius was pretty good, and Nick played okay on one end.
On where Nick Ward can improve …
Well his conditioning is so poor. It is getting better though. He's lost thirty pounds, as we know, and he's had to adjust to that. I wasn't pleased with Nick on the other end, but take that with a grain of salt. Nick competed. When he gets tired, he melts down. That's the reason we're only playing him 16 or 17 minutes again. To his credit he at least competed, some of these guys didn't. When he got really tired at the other end he couldn't guard in the post, and that was the only negative. What I love about Nick right now is that he went from hard to coach to fun to coach. I really do appreciate that about Nick, he's been great in that respect. He's been so receptive, he understands, he just has trouble staying focused when he gets tired, which a lot of people do.
On if he was disappointed with the result after the week of practice …
I don't want to insult you guys, but you have to think, we had two practices. You're not changing everything from three weeks. This is part of step one. And then we lose our star, so, it's been a little bit of a grind. Tomorrow we're practicing twice, just so everybody knows. Maybe three times. We're going to now take all of the fatigue and throw that out the door, and we're going to start competing. Two practices is not going to change that. I don't mean that insultingly, but are you kidding me?
On why guys aren't competing …
It might be because they're still tired, but if they are, so be it. Sooner or later you have to look in the mirror, it gets personal. You're one on one with a guy late in the game you can't give up a layup. It gets personal. So we have to coach that a little bit
On difference in execution…
I did think we did a better job in two areas, we went to the free throw line and sunk a good amount, 73.4 percent. We only had 10 turnovers which was good. We had 19 assists on 24 baskets which was pretty good. But we had 7 for 20 from the three. I swear to you I think that we had enough open looks early that should have been 12 - 20and we would be feeling different. There were some positive things there, really. We had some blocked shots. But the negative things…second chance points are still 17-10. We are not doing a good enough job on that. Bench points were 56 to 0. Our starters had four points the first half so they'll be some rotating going on there. For our fast break, we are consistently doing a better job. We did a great job at Duke and a better job today. When we get it out and go, both Tum Tum and Cassius are pushing it better. We are making progress there. It's really the grit of certain things where we aren't doing a good job.
On coaching 'competing'…
Yes, because you have to understand that some of it is from lack of what we've done in practice for a month. I had too many guys with the AAU mentality. 'Okay so I got beat, there's another, and another.' It's getting to be a problem right now. I heard a coach from the Ohio State women's team go off about it yesterday and you know what, he's right. What are we teaching our kids? Are we teaching them to compete or teach them how to get trophies to put on your bed post? Last place trophies? Fifth place? Third place trophies or first? None of them mean anything, they're all the same. That's what we're dealing with right now. We need to do a better job as coaches in getting that out of them and try to understand during practice times if it's fatigue or is it something else. I look at a Josh Langford or Eron Harris. Those guys are competitors but they didn't do that as well today.
On the AAU mentality…
I just think that we're raised to get a trophy for everything and we're raised to always have another game. That's not a good mentality. As they say, you should play each game like it's your last and that's not what they've done. It's hard. I am seeing that, and I think a lot of other coaches are seeing that, and I don't think it's good for the players.
On coaching mentality and if he has to meet them halfway…
If you meant here, Michigan State, I would answer it one way, and if you meant here, college basketball, I would answer it another way because it sounds to me like the here means, 'Oh, I'm so tough on them.' Another great comment -I just love football season - by a new guy at Texas, he said, 'Did you ever, ever see a coach standing on the podium in any championship event, period, and say we out-finessed them?' Champions aren't made by finesse. Champions are made by grit. So there's no halfway. There's no meeting somebody. There's understanding things and dealing with that. If you're any good at your job, you've got grit. Some of you guys bug the hell out of me. But I respect that because you're trying to be the best at your job. So there's no halfway and I don't mean to insult anyone, but I take that offensively because that's the ammo on me. If it is, I'm proud of it. I'm damn proud of it because that's the way you have to be to be successful. Now, if you don't want to be great and you just want to get your little trophy and go home, then you can do it the other way. But if you want to be great, you've got to figure out that every possession, every inch in football, all of those things matter. And there is no debate. There's a debate on how to get there maybe, but there's no debate on what needs to happen. None. It doesn't matter what sport or what you do. I'd like to see the best in your business and I bet you they're not guys that sit back on their little computer, call up and say 'Coach how are you doing, man? Are you having a nice day? Ok I'll write a little article and call it a day.' Somebody is going to be controversial because that's what it takes. You have to be able to handle those things. I don't like when people say up here at this level. Let's say college basketball, college football, pro basketball, pro football. Let's say in life, you have to be able to reach down, suck it up, and do the things that other people won't do. And that's why I think coaches are getting tired of some of the things that are happening. Is that happening to this team? A little bit. Thank God two of those freshmen rose up today. But there's some of those other guys that didn't rise up today. So we're just going to keep chopping. And we are going to keep grinding. If I give in, I figure that we'll be mediocre. That's the best way I can put it.
On Miles Bridges sitting next to him on the bench during the game…
When I left, he was still in the locker room. I told him that this is his chance to be a leader. This is his chance because you never see it the same from the inside out as from the outside in like when you're sitting there, dying to be in there, watching some guys maybe no do what they need to do. At timeouts, him and I talked on the bench. As I said, we are going to find a silver lining in this cloud of his. He will become a better player by watching. He really will. It's some of the things you've got to learn and how to compete and it's hard. We put them through the ringer and they've gotten their bell rung a little bit. They're not the favorites on Twitter anymore. They're not everybody's heroes right now. So you've got to rebuild and get them back, and so do I. I'm going to enjoy the process of getting it back.
On pushing the buttons of his team…
Yeah that is the tough part. I've got to push a lot of buttons right now. Tomorrow's going to be a couple of practices, a couple of film sessions, and a bunch of meetings. I've got to figure out which buttons to push. Believe it or not, some of that's fun. I spent two hours with Cassius in a parking lot yesterday and it was awesome. It was the most fun I had in six months. Just me and him talking in a parking lot. All of these workers coming by, it was fun. And I'm going to have some fun tomorrow, too.
On which buttons to push…
There's been more than a couple of games were we are passing out shots. And I don't know if it is confidence or if it is, I don't know what it is. But guys are getting yanked for not taking shots right now. They're open and they're not taking them. Like McQuaid, and Ahrens likes to put the ball on the floor all the time, but the ball is coming from different people and different places and people can guard us differently with certain people in the game. This is all going to be an adjustment for awhile and some of it is nobody's fault and the parts that are my fault, I'm going to take ownership of. The parts that are the player's fault, I'm hoping that I'm going to coach them good enough and take ownership and if we both do that, we're going to grow. Listen, we grew a ton from Arizona till today. A ton. I know it probably doesn't look like it to you guys but we grew a ton. No moral victories, not in the things we said, but in the things we did. And if you saw my board, you'd see three key things today: limit our unforced turnovers, attack the defensive boards so we don't give up so many second-chance points, and stop the baseline out of bounds plays which have been a problem. We've given up more this year than we did all last year after eight games. They've got one or two on us there, but we did a better job on the turnovers and we didn't do a good job on the boards. But there were times when we got in and it was Nick. So we chopped off another one. We got better in another area. And hopefully Tuesday or Wednesday, whenever we play again, we are going to get better in another area. We are going to get fixed. If you think I'm depressed, I'm not. I'm ticked off. There's a big difference. I'm not depressed. We're going to get it fixed. It's a tough sled to get it fixed when you have to fix things that, to me, you shouldn't have to fix how hard people work. What I have to fix is seeing if it is the practice time, is it because of the way we are coaching, not hard enough. I've got to look in the mirror too. I've got my reasons and I think we're doing fine, but I've got to do a better job. So it's time to throw caution to the wind here more and more and say, you know, we've got to do what we've got to do. This is part of the environment we are in where winning isn't quite as important as it used to be in society. The reason it's hard to do sports in the elementary schools is because if you have 500 kids playing, you know what the cost is to buy 500 trophies? It's a lot. Those poor kids would be better off not getting the trophy and getting competition. But that's kind of the way we have it so it's not their fault. It doesn't work that way in college. I don't know about anybody in this room, but I don't think it works that way in your jobs either. I don't think you get a trophy if you get a bad job, do you? That doesn't happen. So I feel bad for those kids.
On how the team feels with Miles not being there…
You can only take so many guys away. One of the refs said something to me tonight. He said, 'Well, you're missing Miles.' Yeah, we already forgot about the other two guys and that's what happens. We ran out of bodies today with fatigue and the size that they have so we have to get some guys better and we will. We will get better. If you look at it, we made some progress, even today with the negative. But we made a lot of progress from Arizona to today and we will keep making progress. And we will be better on Tuesday if you ask me.
Oral Roberts Head Coach Scott Sutton
Opening Statement…
Well, first off, this was a pleasure to come here and play at Michigan State. I appreciate Coach Izzo for having us. We've been all over the country and this is one of the elite programs in America. I'm very proud of our guys. We've come a long way since Thursday night against Oakland. We kind of got it handed to us by them and we were embarrassed. I can handle losing if my guys will go out to compete and play with toughness and play hard, which is what we did today. We did make mistakes that didn't allow us to win the game, especially some key block outs on some free throws. But I feel much better about this group than I did Thursday night that's for sure.
On Nick Ward's performance…
We knew Nick Ward was obviously a very talented player. We kept telling our guys to not just look at his stats, but look at the production when he's in the game. The guy is playing 15-16 minutes a game and he's getting 11 points, six rebounds. We knew he probably would play a bigger role today and he did great. He got our big guys in foul trouble, made some key baskets. I even thought he was shooting free throws well. He's a load and when they get Miles Bridges back, that's obviously two very, very talented freshmen.
On the successful first half strategy…
We thought that we could have some success down low, especially the way they started. They had a guard at the four position and we thought we could take advantage with Emmanuel Nzekwesi and Albert Owens. Both of them had some success and then would miss some shots. To beat a team on the road in this environment, those guys can't miss some of those easy shots that we did. Both of them missed even dunks, which you cannot do.
On a strong performance against a top program…
This team, that's what is frustrating and has been very talked about, has played its best three games against arguably the three best teams we will play. We had Baylor to open the season. If we make a few more shots we would be right there, I mean, Baylor has turned out to be a top-10 team. We had Mississippi beat by five with 45 seconds left of play. I thought that really hurt our confidence and to be honest, I don't know if we've recovered since fully. We lost our point guard in that game and you guys don't want to hear about injuries because Michigan State has more than anyone in the country, but we've had some key injuries. Two of them have been guys that would be starters. That game was hard to get over because it would have been a big game for our program. We were down there in the Virgin Islands and just didn't respond the next two days. This team, it's something we need to figure out, because they have played well against the best teams we've faced. But that Oakland squad is a great basketball team. They've done a heck of a job getting kids to transfer back home to play. I put them up there with the other talented three teams we've played.
On the injuries of starting players…
Aaron Anderson, our point guard and probably the most experience player twisted his knee in the second half against Ole Miss in the Virgin Islands. He is probably a week away we're hoping. I don't think he'll play against Oklahoma Wednesday night, but hopefully the week after that when we go back on the road against Missouri State. Javan White just had knee surgery, and you know, he is still a ways away. Those two guys we are counting on to be starters for us.
Michigan State guard Eron Harris
On the initial reaction to tonight's game…
It's not the scoring that's going to lose it, it's going to be the rebounds and the turnovers. That will lose the game.
On being happy with the win, not happy with the performance…
Were happy with winning but like you said definitely not exciting.
On what does the team have to do to get rolling …
We just have to strap our boots up and go to work, it's coming down to that. I feel like we are giving the effort, but we have more to give now.
Michigan State forward Nick Ward
On the initial reaction to tonight's game …
I feel like we played hard, we could've played a little better and a little tougher but we got the job done. I feel like my teammates contributed and we got the result.
On how to get things going…
Play tougher, Play better as a team and just play well defensively. We took some plays off defensively all of us, we need a better defensive effort.
On emphasis of getting the ball down low…
The game plan was to get the bigs into foul trouble and score that way. We just had to take advantage of everything we had and use it to our advantage.
On utilizing post plays…
Just have to use our skills, its going to be tough my coaches and my dad use to say that to me my whole life, so I just have to have confidence basically.
Michigan State Guard Cassius Winston
On the initial reaction to tonight's game…
We got a lot of things to improve, we got a lot of things to do as a team. Its really coming from us, its not our shots its not our excuses, its just how we play the game. We gotta come to the game with a little more toughness and a little more spirit and things like that intensity. Once we do that we will be a good team.
On the offensive effort…
We lost 17 points for a little second of our season, so we gotta get together to make up those points and we got a lot of guys who are capable. We had an assist on like 80% of our shots tonight, so we are getting the ball moving, getting guys in their spots where they can be successful.
On getting the ball down low…
Nick Ward is a great post player, he can basically get a shot whenever he wants down there. There is not a lot of people who can guard him down there. We get it in there and a lot of teams have to double team and things like that so when we get it in there it just gets the ball moving. We get assists on a lot of plays like that.
On losing Miles Bridges…
He's a big part of what we are doing, there are a lot of plays that run through him early to get us going inside. He's got a lot of energy and a leader of this team and being without him was kind of different out there. At the end of the day we have to fight through adversity. He's going to be back and better than ever so right now we just have to hold it down.
On how its not the way you want to win…
Most definitely, there is a lot of things to improve on. Winning is better no matter what and we will take it at any point. There is a lot of things that we have to do better and with teams like this we should be doing a lot of things better.
