Post-Game Quotes: Iowa

POST-GAME QUOTES: Michigan State 90, Iowa 68

Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo

Opening Statement…

Well I've got to admit, a shocking game for me. I thought both teams started out kind of sloppy. We both looked tired I thought they had to bounce back after a tough loss at home. We've just been on that brutal road schedule and didn't seem like a lot of things were going our way. Kenny was struggling early and then we got our break going a little bit, started getting the ball inside and that made a big, big difference. I thought Nick played exceptionally well. I guess 10-of-10 there's not a lot I can yell at him about, so got to give Nick all the credit in the world although he did miss a few free throws, but he had a great game. We did the things that we wanted to do. You have 28 assists on 31 baskets, it's unbelievable. I think at halftime I don't know whatever number of baskets we had, we had one short of assists. We shot pretty well from the free throw line and we rebounded pretty well. They did get 21 offensive boards which bothers me, but I think they had 20 of them on that one possession and then the turnovers. I mean we had four with four minutes left to go in the game and the rat pack came in and turned it over a little bit but then again, those guys deserve to play. I was hoping to get a bucket for Jack Hoiberg, been a rough day for him and other than that Franny's got a good team. I've seen this team play eight or nine tapes. They're a lot better than they played tonight for whatever reason. I think that's going to be the hard part of Big Ten games at this time. It's hard to say why teams get up or don't get up, but this has been a very difficult 11 days for us and we're going to get a much-needed break tomorrow and then try and get a few practices in. I'm pleased that I've learned that my team can prepare without going through the grind of a practice meaning with a lot of walk-throughs, lot of film sessions and then hopefully that will help us later on in the year.

On his team's defensive effort…

I didn't think we came out of the locker room, you know we were not pleased with how we were moving the ball. We thought we did some good things, but we just didn't think we were helping on those curl-cuts. They were getting to the basket a little too much and I thought we shored up a few things. Nick was better from the post, Kenny was a lot better. Cassius is the guy I'm worried about because we're kind of playing him into the ground right now, so he was tired. I mean him and Josh have played a lot of minutes and then Ahrens got hurt a little bit with his hip, so we were just down a little bit there, but it gave our freshmen a chance to get playing a little bit and I thought Aaron played pretty good and Gabe will start picking up in practice a little bit, it'll be good. I thought our defense was better and I didn't know it was one out of 20, but that's not like Iowa either.

On Kenny Goins' performance…

I think you have to give a lot of credit to Kenny, got to give a lot of credit to Dwayne Stephens. We've really harped on those three guys getting better along with the two freshmen, but those three guys free throw shooting. He's been in with them late at night watching film. We just have to get those guys better and I think if you look at all three of them, Goins goes 6-of-11, Ward goes 10-of-10 and what did Xavier 5-of-6, so guess DJ gets the day off tomorrow while the rest of us work, but that was a hell of a performance plus they rebounded the ball pretty well with eight, nine and 14. They didn't have many turnovers except Nick had a couple. They shot pretty well from the line. I'm not sure Xavier should count two of those when they bounce around and still go in, but we'll take them not tonight anyway.

On Kenny's ball movement and assists…

They were really kind of, I don't know if it was doubling Nick, but they were really sagging down on Nick, so we started flashing him to the high post. He had a couple high to low and we were just burying Nick in there and I thought we did a pretty good job of that. Kenny got all the assists. I know he at least got three or four that way, but he moved the ball pretty good. It's funny because in the game I didn't think we were running great, but we ran a little better than I thought. It's just that in those huddles everybody just, I can just tell looking in their eyes and I think probably Iowa went through the same thing, so much needed rest. Hopefully we'll build on Kenny and them, but it's Josh and Cass that I'm worried about too for the number of minutes they're playing.

On if he thinks McQuaid will play Saturday…

He did go through the warmups today. As of yesterday I would have said 100 percent no. As the trainer told me every day that things could improve a lot, well it improved a lot from yesterday to today but again if he does it'll be as a minimum, I think, unless he has some remarkable recovery tomorrow again which could happen. It's a bruise, it's not a broken leg or anything. It's just that it was a severe bruise and I'll update you as soon as my trainer tells me what to do.

On what has changed regarding turnovers…

I don't think we're out of the deep water yet, you know. I don't think… I think that's one of the problems; We get a little casual at times. I'm not ready to figure that's over, I just… We've been harping on it, everybody's been harping on it. One time I've used every quote I could use from every coach, from every media guy. I'm trying to get our guys to understand the value of it. They do, but some of them just, as you know those 11 in a half were ridiculous. I think they've kind of understood that we're not going to win doing that, just like we're not going to win not shooting well from the free throw line. I don't know if I'm disappointed or not. They got 30 free throws tonight; That was the number one key. They're averaging like 33 free throws a game so we wanted to defend without fouling and I think with four minutes left to go in the first half we did a great job and then we just started fouling everybody. I think they got like eight free throws in the last four minutes and all deserving because we didn't do a very good job. Four minutes in the first half we didn't do a very good job; Had 16 at halftime. They do drive the ball well. I thought we did a decent job of kind of sixth-eyeing it as we call it, collapsing, Jordan rules, whatever you want to call it but a lot of sagging. We gave up a couple of three's because of it; We just felt like a couple of those guys had done such a good job; His son is a very good… Connor (McCaffery) is a very good driver. (Tyler) Cook has changed his game a lot. He is a very, very good driver.

On Nick Ward's performance in Big Ten play so far and how satisfied he is…

Awful. Awful, I don't give Nick any credit right now. I love him but I'm going to keep him on the even keel. I think everybody said it; Jimmy Jackson said it to me. I mean, he's a different player. He's focused in 99 percent of the time, so I will say he's off to as good a start because we don't play another Big Ten game for three weeks. We got a lot of work to do yet and there's times where he's still… We thought he could've ducked in more; Like Xavier (Tillman) got in there and really ducked in and got some buckets. We thought he could've done a little better job of that, but as he keeps shooting free throws, because he can get to the line, and if we can get him up to 70 percent from the line. The other thing we're really harping on Nick about is to get more rebounds. He's good enough; He was a better rebounder as a freshman, but he appreciates that and knows it. I think what's happened with Nick now is, last year he was getting ripped and this year he's getting coached and really, I haven't done anything any different; I think it's just the maturity of him. I'm proud of what he's done because he's done it the old-fashioned way, you know. He worked his tail off this summer, he lost more weight, he's working on his free throws morning, noon and night now. I guess I beat around the bush because I've learned not to give certain guys too much credit, but I do got to give him credit because I'm proud of what he's done and how he's done it. All three of our bigs tonight I thought were really, really good. They played well together, they played well off each other. I think we can shoot a little better. Kenny's been shooting threes pretty well and so was Xavier early on so we got to get back to that; Maybe practice will help that.

On how important it is for the team to be able to win in the paint when threes aren't falling…

Well I think that is important because you remember for a while there early we were just… We were living and dying on the threes and that's not going to win you big games; Yet I think we're good enough three-point shooting team, 3-for-12, you know we are in the 40s I think overall; 42. I think deservingly so. I think we are a pretty good shooting team. We just didn't get as many shots. When you get into conference play, opponents are going to take away… Like they took away Josh (Langford) in that lane pretty good; Then all of a sudden, we started getting it inside, we started getting Aaron Henry on the other side. I think Kyle Ahrens would've… He hurt that hip early, just bruised that too so that'll be a sting tomorrow; I guess it was his lower back. He wasn't as good as he's been, and I think if we could've got him going a little bit, got our break going a little more, we would've played better the first half.

On the bigs being hard for opposing teams to guard…

I hope so. I hope so. You know, Nick is a load down there; He's just a lot lighter load, but he still has that knack to get the ball up and he's a pretty tough kid. We just got to keep maybe working on those other guys because now they'll start sagging there and now we'll have to work on our three. If we keep some balance… It's like a good football team; can you run, and can you pass? You know, if you have some balance it's going to make it a lot better. We do have a weapon in there and if he's making his free throws it's a real weapon. I think part of his plus is the way he runs the court; He can beat people up and down the court. We didn't want to put many people on Cook either because he draws a lot of fouls, so I can appreciate what Franny was thinking.

On if the physicality impacted the Iowa stretch of only three points…

I don't know, you know, I don't think we're that physical. I mean, I'm comparing us to the good old days, where now we play bumper ball instead of football. I think, to be honest with you, when you watch Iowa on film, they're pretty physical. Those big guys posted up strong early, but I don't know if the physicality did or I don't know if both teams were, like I said, a little tired. Hate to use that as an excuse but Franny's team didn't look like the team I've saw on film either. Tough when you come off a tough loss and you got to go on a road trip and you've got so many things going on right now; some schools starting finals and this and that. It's a weird time of year. This used to be Jud's favorite time of year to say, hey, when it gets anywhere between Thanksgiving and finals, so many things can happen; everybody looks at things differently. What I told my team in the locker room right now, is I'm proud of the five games in 11 days or whatever it was – 12 days, because I thought we battled. I thought we played pretty good; we had our moments when we weren't, but the way they had to prepare for different teams without a lot of practice and without a lot of rest, I thought was impressive. I'm hard to impress but I was very pleased and impressed with that. Now we'll see if we can get a day off, feel better, practice good Wednesday and Thursday and get some practice then fly down to Florida. It will be another tough game on the road against an opponent in a tough place to play. We'll see. We're sure going to be road tested, there's no question about that. It'd be nice to be home for a little longer than we've been home. I promise I appreciated the crowd tonight and everything because these guys were – haven't been home much.

Michigan State forward Kenny Goins

On tonight's performance…
Recently coach has just been telling me that I need to be more aggressive on the offensive end. I just have to give credit to a couple of my teammates for making some good shots. Wish I could have a couple more, but give them credit because we just had a crazy number of assists across the board. I think it was 28 out of 31 buckets, it wasn't just me out there.

On the seven assists…
Today was just one of those days where it worked out in their defensive plan that I got to pass that high-to-low and I think I had five assists on that alone to X (Xavier Tillman) and Nick (Ward). I was just in the right place at the right time and like I said it just worked out in my favor today.

On outscoring them in the paint…
The main thing in attacking them in the zone is hitting the high post and that was where I was at most of the time. So when we hit the high post it was guarded by the center which left the blocks open for a wing being on a big or no one being on them. With Nick (Ward) and any wing it's barbecue chicken, he's going to score every time so I just kind of threw it up and let him go to work.

On the defensive performance…
We had a great game plan from our coaches and then coming into halftime we just kind of got a nice stern talking to about the defensive end because we were just having lapses all over the place so coming out of halftime that was our huge focus, just holding them on defense which showed coming out of the gates. Give credit to the coaches and drawing up the game plan for us.

Michigan State point guard Cassius Winston

On tonight's performance...
We definitely are starting to find the groove as a team. Finding dudes in their spots and playing our tempo every game is helping us out a lot.

On the game plan…
They had a little guy at the bottom so we just exploited those mismatches. Kenny (Goins) did a good job of find the open man and we did a good job of hitting those shots.

On starting with two wins in the Big Ten…
Huge. Start off with a road win and then a home win against a really good Iowa team. Those are big wins for us and are going to help us down the road.

Michigan State center Nick Ward

On the key to tonight's win...
In the zone they play a guard in the bottom, so our plan was to dump them in to get an easy bucket.

On tonight's performance…
To be honest I had no idea that I was 10-for-10 from the floor, I was just playing. Trying to make the easy plays for my teammates. They pass me the ball and make the play for me so I am just trying to get them the assist really. I didn't know that until the end of the game.

On starting the Big Ten with two wins…
It is huge. Every Big Ten game is tough so we just have to come prepared for our next game… I think we've got Florida. We have to prepare for that game and then just keep on pushing forward.

Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery

On Kenny Goins…
I've always been impressed by him. I think a better indicator is what Tom (Izzo) thinks of him. Tom always plays him and trusts him. He battles you on the glass, he scores when he has to and he defends. The guy's a winner.

On why Nick Ward and Xavier Tillman were so effective…
We did a poor job in the zone. We got isolated on our small forward a couple of times and that's a tough cover for them. They got some stuff in transition that we were trying to guard against but we didn't do a very good job. They're both very good players. I thought we had the best shot with Luka (Garza) against them, but he got in foul trouble. (Ryan) Kriener was okay for a while. I tried to keep Cook off of them in that spot, but he had to play them a little bit. I needed to have him at the other end so I really couldn't make that move.

On what went wrong in the second half…
Pretty much everything. We didn't get anything going offensively, they did. It was their ball to start and they had some good offensive possessions. We had a couple of turnovers. We had some good looks at it but didn't make it. Then we had a foul and then it just kind of snowballed quickly. I thought about calling a timeout after the second basket, but I didn't just in case we needed it. I probably should have.

On Joe Wieskamp's injury…
He hurt his ankle. Pretty much too early to say about Thursday. We'll see how he is tomorrow and Wednesday. Then It'll probably be a game time decision.

On what was going well when they were leading…
I thought we were moving the ball. Obviously we missed some shots, but I thought they were good shots. Then we had a stretch of some bad possessions and they got up into us pretty good. We had some late shot clock long jumper situations that really aren't high percentage. They typically run on your misses really well. They run on their makes too, but better on your misses. I thought we fought pretty well in the beginning. We got into foul trouble early. We got ten pretty quick and as the half went on they got into foul trouble. But in that one stretch the fouls were pretty much on us, by the end of the half they were pretty even.

On if it was a just a case of one team going uphill and the other downhill after the half…
We didn't have the kind of possessions we wanted. We tried to run a few sets, we tried to run some things. We had a couple of passes deflected. Live ball turnovers are deadly against this team, everyone knows that.

Players Mentioned

Kyle Ahrens

Kenny Goins

Aaron Henry

Jack Hoiberg

Xavier Tillman Sr.

Nick Ward

Cassius Winston