Michigan State vs. Southern Utah Post Game Quotes
12/9/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo
Opening Statement…
Well, you know, it was a different game. I thought we played pretty well early. They made some shots and we missed a bunch of shots. Then we got a lead and just did something uncharacteristic of us. We got a lead and we kind of just said 'my turn.' That was the first time I've seen that and I told my team I was disappointed in that because we weren't moving the ball like I thought we could. You know, some things happen. I thought that technical hurt us. We were 14-up and I don't agree with. If anything, it could've been a double. They hit the two free-throws, they hit a three and all of a sudden it's a 9-point game. We just couldn't get over the hump.
But give Todd (Simon) credit, his team's tough, they play hard, they're very well coached. I like his team. They hit some three's that I'm not sure they've been hitting on film, but they hit them and that's all that matters. For us, you know, I told Jaren Jackson after, he wants to lead us in rebounding so he, I think he missed and got eight shots on that one possession. If he's looking to do that, I'd like to find a better way to do it. But you know, he did some things that we wanted him to do. He took the ball to the hole, he got fouled down there, got some offensive rebounds.
I thought Nick (Ward), you know, you guys make it hard on me, you and talk radio. You guys, you reporters, you guys make it hard on me because, you know, everybody thinks I'm mad at Nick. So I told him, 'what the hell Nick, go ahead and shoot a three.' Then it went in so that was good. That was for you guys, that three we set up for him. You know, I thought Cassius Winston played really well. He made some very good plays, did some nice things. But if I had to go for a 5-star guy… I told D.J. (Stephens) on the bench with ten minutes left to go in the game that I thought this was Miles' (Bridges) best game.
That all sounds a little crazy because 17 points was one of his lowest production of all last year. If you look at him taking it to the basket, you look at him rebounding, you look at him with six assists, 11 rebounds. He got some offensive rebounds. Defense was a lot better. Starting to see the real Miles now and that, that is exciting. For some reason we couldn't get everybody involved. I didn't think we moved the ball well enough that Josh (Langford) and poor Quaido (Matt McQuaid) didn't get involved. Didn't get… If Nick would've made some of those free throws, he would've had a big night and we probably would've had an easier time. All in all we played okay, not great. But I know this. We played a lot better than five other top 10 teams that didn't… that got beat by unranked teams this week. As my old boss Jud Heathcote used to say, finals and Christmas, tough time for basketball to stay focused. Again, I thought we practiced really well. I thought we missed some shots and they made them. I'm saying we missed some shots, we shoot 48-percent, 47 from the three. But all those misses. Nick had 74 from the line. Probably the most… I said we were a little selfish, 24 assists on 28 baskets. So that shows that the coach doesn't know what the hell he's talking about and I'll just take the win and move into finals week.
On Cassius Winston's ability to shoot three's…
I'll tell ya what the best part about that is, you know, Cassius (Winston) today wanted to get Nick (Ward) and Josh (Langford) involved a little more a couple times. And then Tum comes in and he's sitting on the bench and he comes in, we were planning a book and he says, 'Coach, I can get Cassius some shots,' and told me a couple things to run. You know, it's not easy to be Cassius coming in here, a highly ranked kid, and Tum starts most of last year and then Tum started for three years, now coming off the bench. I think that alone tells you a lot about it and he's his biggest cheerleader. It was his calls that got Cassius the ball and I said, sometimes it works to play those two together because Cass is a very good two guard, too and he is shooting the lights out. Things went a little smoother… I don't know. We're going to keep working with McQuaid. He's just too good of a shooter, too good a kid and too hard of a worker to shoot like he's shooting. It is what it is. We're just going to have to keep trying to get him better.
On being able to defend their three-point shooting early on…
Yeah. They made a couple tough ones early. That first one was 25-feet out. It's just… we just got to sit there, here we go again. But you know, we said everything you hear, our offensive rebounding was poor. We worked on that, we got that better and we said that our turnovers were poor. We've worked somewhat on that and gotten somewhat better. You know the one thing that's been poor all year? Teams are shooting too good from the three against us. I think we're, you know, I think I got to take the blame for that. We want to keep guys out of the lane and we don't want to foul guys. This team goes to the free throw line 27 times a game. So we didn't want to close up too tight and foul them and give them credit to hit some shots. That'll be this week's now. I think the two things that we really got to work on this week is that ball movement side-to-side on offense, pressing up a little bit more on defense. If we can get those things locked in and get better over finals and get better over Christmas… You know, I still think we have a huge upside to this team.
On if being number one in the rankings is a bullseye he wants the team to wear…
Yeah, I love that bullseye. They could put Villanova up there, they've been playing awfully well too. If it's us, that's a great bullseye. That's a dream come true. You always want your team to be ranked high. If you can't handle that… and I do want to see if we can handle it. So if we are blessed with that, that'd be great and if we're not, we'll have… I'm going to have a chip on my shoulder either way. So it doesn't matter to me, but I don't know how they'll feel. You know, I think this team has to learn how to handle all these things. It is amazing to me though, you guys would probably know better than me but just even last week, I think people just think we should beat everybody by 25 points. I mean, they're either on Dial-A-Clue or drugs, you know, something. There's some good teams out there, there's some people that play hard. When you are ranked high, everybody is coming at you. I mean, Duke's had a lot more close games than we have against some… you know. And just the way it is. I like the fact that our guys are handling it pretty much. I get disappointed in people thinking that we should just cruise through all these games. If you go on the road in the Big Ten, you know, I watched some of the Duke game today, at Boston College and it's hard to win on the road in the league.
On if finals week is a good mental break for the team from the everyday grind…
Just trying to think how I would address your finals week. Did you… Was it tough? Finals week is tough guys. I mean, it's… you do get a little time. We, as we always seem to have it, it's a lot of times… Like when I was in college, up in the U.P, if you had a week of finals it would be Tuesday and maybe Wednesday, everybody wanted to get the hell out of there, enjoy the warm weather. We got half our finals on Thursday and Friday and that's not good for us because it's going to be a grind all week and then you need some time. I mean, Oakland, they might have their best team ever, now they got all their guys back. So don't get thrown away by their schedule or their stats, because they didn't have two of their best players playing. So can't restock the whole time, this is one of the best teams and you know, I'm sure he's hoping we're number one. You know, because the last time we were, they almost beat us. I don't know, Matt, I don't know. It's not easy, I'll tell you that. The grind that they've been through and then all of a sudden you've got tests everyday and you're trying to squeeze a practice in. It's even harder on us because we're trying to squeeze a morning or afternoon practice so we can go in the road recruiting at night because it's the only chance we get to get out. It is what it is. I'd rather be playing someone else besides Oakland on Saturday just because you don't know how guys will handle the week and that's the whole way the season's been. I'm looking forward to the challenge. I'm looking forward to trying to get a little better in the things. Now we've got a pretty good clue of what are we good at, what are we average at and what are we poor at? You know, we've done such a good job at the free throw line and then all of a sudden a couple of games. We're not very good at guarding the three, still not great at turning the ball over. We are getting better at rebounding the ball. We've been dynamite defensively even though it's not been from the three.
On Todd Simon and his team…
You know I love Todd, and he's from this area. He was so appreciative to come back. I think he had a lot of people here from Fowler. That was cool for him and we were really impressed with him on film, on how his team plays hard, executes, and whenever you're getting to the foul line a lot it means you're playing very aggressively. That's one thing we've done an average job at over the years, but we're a little better now. I think that teams got a chance to win some other games in that league. They keep everybody healthy and they've had a couple guys that have been hurt. I like the job he's done. I like the opportunity he has. It seems like a nice place looking at it on film and I'll be pulling for them hard. It's nice to see a local guy do good.
I would imagine Nick kind of felt some eyeballs on him today, I wonder how you thought that he approached the game and kind of handling all that?
I got to say this because it's who I am; you guys were ridiculous last week. You look at things and you don't understand I got a job to do and you ain't going to get in my way of doing my job. So, if you want to bait him and then get Talk Radio going like they did, and by the time Nick (Ward) got on the airplane, Nick was fine.
Nick got frustrated about some things and I didn't like the way he played. I don't know where you came up with the argument on the bench, just to call you out. I get called out. You know when you read that and you expect me to take a punch, so you take one. Those are the things that make me want to get real guarded because I can take them even though I get angry over it, because I think our fans should be a little more grown up after 23 years of more guys talking more than Nick Ward took because I didn't even get on Nick Ward. I just benched him and how did he handle it? Phenomenally. Honest to god, phenomenally. In the plane, he said, 'you know Coach I just got upset about they were doubling me and this and that.' I said, 'well your body language, Nick. You didn't get pulled because of your play, you got pulled because of your body language.'
I will be honest with you, we're trying to win a championship. When you're trying to win a championship there's not a lot of margin for error, and I think Rutgers is going to beat some teams, but Rutgers would be one of those games you can't afford to lose. They knew that going in, they knew how I felt going in, and when I see things real early in the game that lead me to believe that we're reading out press clippings. Until the day I get out of this job it's going to get addressed and if you don't like it or if fans don't like it, that's too bad. But other than missing free throws Nick Ward today: 6-for-10, 4-for-9 from the line, six rebounds, 21 minutes, 17 points. I'd say he responded really well. And Cassius Winston was better than Nick Ward, and I do get frustrated.
I got a guy here now from Georgetown and the game ended and to be honest with you it was like should we close the locker room up because that's what they do in other places? What the hell did you do that for? Well you know, Nick, and should we go through the list? Adrian Peterson, Mateen Cleaves. You know that's back when we weren't worried about lawyers so you could have fist fights in the locker room. It was more fun back then and now I can't do those things so I just got to…you know by the way you sit the bench the second half and that frustrates me. I guess it's stories for you, but why would it be a story?
One thing about me, I've been consistent. It's consistent, you know no phoniness, it's been consistent the whole time. I don't appreciate that if you want the truth and yet I'm probably making it a bigger deal than it was because I'm going to remind you that you hold Nick accountable. I hold you accountable. It's a great country we live in and Nick Ward, you know, I'm getting people calling me saying, 'oh he's going to transfer.' Well if he wants to transfer, then he should transfer. But you know that's the Talk Radio idiots, and I mean that because that's what causes problems on a highly ranked team that everything is scrutinized and you have to be able to take that, and you have to be able to handle that. I don't need my own people poisoning the pot so that's my statement.
You guys must not know me as well as you think you know me because you've been with me a long time and has that ever changed? Ever changed? I'll tell you when it changed. Instead of yelling at them I did something better. I said, 'why don't you sit down in the seat next to me brother.' And you know what, it might not have been good for us. It was probably healthier for me, but that was a little different for you guys. And yet if I would have done the other way it's scrutinized the same way.
It's not easy to coach in this market anymore. It's not easy to coach with the social media that we got. I'm on a little rampage here so you got to live with it because I get one shot too. I got a really good team and I got really, really, really good guys, and my guys know me and if I were to step out of bounds…I'm just trying to figure out why would somebody on Twitter or anywhere else - thank God I don't read that - but I have to listen to people call me and think that sitting a guy is the end of the world.
Any of you have kids? You know when your kid flunks a class do you come home and pat them on the back and say, 'jeez Johnny nice job, hope you flunk the next test too.' That's crazy. So today Nick did what a great player should do, he responded. When he came out, 'coach that was my fault on the free throws.' Like the jerk I am I said, 'now you know what Nick, I agree it was, now you have to work a little harder.' But Nick was locked in early. We all need - including me - so maybe you guys gave me a little heat check here this week. So, I'm responding to yours, he responded to mine. Beautiful day.
On if he felt his team escaped a tough game…
A 25-point win, I don't know if that's an escape. But I guess if it is I will count it as an escape. A ten point win the other night. I just hope everybody understands that we're not the warriors of three years ago. We're not probably going to win 90% of our games, but I think we're still growing. I think we're still looking to improve. I think we're good enough where I'm going to hold the pedal to the metal because I think we have to constantly improve each day and with the noise out there everybody's going to tell these guys how good they are and I got to make sure that they keep doing the things that they got to do to be successful. That's what I've done all year, but that's what I've done for 22 other years.
Southern Utah head coach Todd Simon
Opening remarks…
We came a long way and are a budding program, we are rebuilding this thing. I thought our guys played really hard, didn't quite get shots to fall. From a competitive standpoint I was very proud of our guys.
On emotions and being in the game late…
From the last few days and the buildup of coming back to a place where I got to spend a lot of time growing up, it was exciting. Just playing in front of family, so many people from Fowler and Central Michigan, that was really cool. Being able to do what you do in front of people that you are fond of. As it got going we felt like our team really believed in themselves. They feel like they can battle and win these games. Getting down that stretch we felt like that if we could get a few breaks, a few shots to fall, we could make it interesting down the stretch. We knew that at any given time they could go 10, 15-0 on you.
On thoughts of MSU's team…
What is so impressive is the talent level is extremely high and what makes it special is that he is able to reach all these guys and get them to play so hard. That is impressive, especially at this stage of the season with new faces and new lineups and moving guys to different positions. That is a very hard thing to do, and it seems like he has a complete buy in from the whole group. They just play so hard and that is one thing you can't game plan against. No matter who you are, the second and third efforts on every possession just jump out on the screen. It is easy to get blinded by the talent of Jackson and Bridges and the future that some of these guys will have. But the second and third and fourth efforts are why they are where they are.
On 3-point shooting…
First half it got a little sticky. With the strength of our program it feels like we have a brotherhood with our guys and it is as good of chemistry that I have been a part of out of all my coaching years at any level. We have had games where we really share the ball with 15 3s and open looks for guys because guys are making plays for each other. Today our game plan was to get 30 3s and make 15 of them. We are coming off a game where we did just that. We felt like we could because they are so aggressive defensively. We felt maybe we could pop open and pop free on a couple of these looks, we ended up 11-for-26 and we probably wanted to get a few more. We passed up some and drove inside the trees and learned that is not a good strategy. I think they had 12 blocks. Those openings close so quickly and that was a good lesson for us, we are a good shooting team and we like to share and that is going to be a strength.
On how tough MSU is to stop when Winston and others are making 3s…
It is a game changer with him at that position being able to knock down those shots. Sometimes guys that don't want to shoot them give you a little bit of a window to close down and get there. He is shooting with great confidence and getting it off quick. He is a game changer for them when he is playing like that. There are not many holes in that lineup and not many guys that you can cheat on. He really made us pay being a step late or off of other guys penetration and that makes it very hard to guard.
On expectations for Gavin Schilling and Ben Carter for the rest of the year…
The stuff that Gavin does doesn't get appreciated because he is not a stat guy. He is the best on-ball screen defender that I have ever coached in the game of basketball. You are in so many of them and a couple times we were trying to avoid at all cost putting him in any ball screen situations, because we knew that we were not going to have any success. His ability to guard ball screens is going to pay dividends to help win a championship. Also on the glass he is so aggressive on the offensive glass. He reminds me a lot of another player that I was fortunate enough to coach, Tristan Thompson. That just has that value and he knows what he is, he is not trying to be something he is not. He is a great post defender. His numbers on a statistical basis from a defensive standpoint are off the charts and people are not scoring on him. He poses a great problem. And Ben, as he continues to get healthy, is such a nice weapon and a luxury to have because if you put him in a zone, he will tear a zone up. He is such a cerebral player. He is like another coach on the floor at a four position, which is a very dangerous position.
Michigan State sophomore guard Cassius Winston
On Southern Utah trying to make a run in the second half…
They shot the three-ball well, that kind of kept them in the game. They just hit three, after three, after three, and it's hard. Three is always worth more than two, so we battling against that was good for us. They were knocking it down. We had to figure out a way to run them off the three-point line, but also keep them from getting layups.
On the determination of the team at the end of the game to pull away…
That's just the signs of winning teams. I think we learned how to win games, learn the plays we got to make, learn how to buckle down on the stops and things like that. Those are going to be huge for us to win those key games down the road.
On this win going into finals week…
Got to buckle down on school now, just finish strong. I think a lot of us had a good semester, we been taking care of the classroom and also the court, so just finish strong in both areas.
Michigan State sophomore guard/forward Miles Bridges
On what the team will take away from this game…
We just need to be better defensively. They made a lot of three's today, they had a high percentage, so if we can bear-down on defense... we did good on the rebounding, offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds. We just need to do better on defense.
On the offensive run to pull away at the end of the second half…
Our defense started getting better. We started pressing up on the screens, getting a hand up in everybody's face. Once we started doing that, we started altering their shots.
On Coach Izzo saying Bridge's performance was his best as a Spartan…
It means a lot, I think he said that just because I had an all-around game today, scored some, got the ball to my teammates, and I rebounded the ball. I don't know, I just give all the thanks to my teammates.
On this win going into finals week…
It's going to be a good break for us, just because we've been playing a lot of games in the last 15 days. We can get off our feet a little bit, but we still have to worry about school, so that's the easy part.
On Nick Ward's 3-pointer…
The crazy thing is he could've passed me the ball, and I knew he wanted to shoot the three. So, I just backed up and let him shoot it, and he made it, so it was funny for everybody.
Michigan State freshman forward Jaren Jackson Jr.
On Southern Utah building a run after MSU building a large lead…
That's what's going to happen at any point when teams can snap off three's like that. They hit a lot down the stretch, which kept them in the game and gave them a lot of confidence. There was a lot them, and a lot us just not being conscience of the match-ups, but we know we need to play better down the stretch and thankfully we were able to pull away.
On the offensive run to end the game…
It's just about energy. We play with more heart and passion and got down defensively, and the defense always leads to our offense, so that translates to a score.
On this win going into finals week…
It's great because now we get a little bit of a break, because we've been playing so many games lately, tough games, road games, stuff like that. So, now we get a little bit of time off and it's time to focus on school, time to focus on ourselves more in practice, instead of worrying about other teams and personnel and just time to get better.
