Post-Game Quotes: Northwestern

Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo

Opening Statement…
You know it's hard for me to know what to say except that after a little bit of a sluggish start when they shot well. I've seen their team a lot on film. I love their team. They did not play as well. I thought the first half, the foul trouble really hurt them. Maybe we had a little more depth, although without Josh, it was a big worry for us. I give my staff credit, I thought this was a tough prep. Northwestern does a lot of great things and Chris (Collins) has done a heck of a job with them. And all of a sudden, that game got out of hand. And the second half, I thought after the first five minutes we played poorly. Now did we play the score, did my couple guys get out of sync a little bit. The turnovers, nine of em', 10 of em', 11 of em' in the second half was disappointing. And then Nick having a career night, and I felt bad for him because I had to take him out. It was getting so crazy in there I thought it was, being honest with you, getting out of control and this time I don't think it was his fault. And because of that, I couldn't take a chance on an altercation and lose him for the next game. But in the first half he played as good and solid offensively, defensively as I've seen him play. Cassius (Winston) let the game come to him still ended up with a double-double. I was pleased about that. We got a lot out of those wings you know. Kyle (Ahrens) played decent at times, missed some good shots. (Matt) McQuaid played I think better. We got Aaron Henry in there and he did a pretty good job. And Gabe (Brown) struggled a little bit, but considering it was his first time of really doing some things, pretty good job by him. Foster (Loyer) played pretty well too. So that wasn't the Northwestern team that I've seen, they're better than that. It was just a bad night for them, and yet I thought there was about a 16 minute point in the first half that Michigan State played as good as its played this year.

On his assessment of where his team is at right now…
Yeah you know I like where we're at. I mean I like the way we practiced this week. It's a grind over Christmas cause you try to have two-a-days, where you have meetings and there's nothing to do and you're just constantly with the guys, and days are long and boy they handled it really well. I was really pleased about that. I thought my staff did; they are a hard team to prepare for. They run a lot of good stuff and Chris is gonna be one of the young and up and coming coaches in our profession, and it just happened that tonight was our night. Now I don't think we're as good as you saw tonight either so let's not get any lures of grand for that. We're ready to conquer the world because we played really well at times, but it seems like when things start going south, and I told Cassius, and I'll say it publicly that, you know that's one of the things he has to do. He has to grab the team by the reigns. Josh (Langford) was trying to do that from the bench. I just thought that once it went south a little bit, all of a sudden the turnovers started and this and that. So we still have got some growing up to do, but we're defending pretty well, we're rebounding pretty well, we're still running pretty well, I didn't think we ran as well tonight, but I give Northwestern credit on that. They got back pretty well and it looks like fast break points we ran better than I thought, but you know me I'm never happy so I guess I might as well continue the new year what I did with the old year.

On if the next step is for them to look like this in challenging venues…
Yeah, and you know especially when we don't know what's up with Josh yet as far as whether he'll be back or not. So the young guys are gonna; it is gonna be a different venue when you're on the road. Now thank God we played at Louisville, we played at Florida, but some of those guys didn't play as many minutes. And it's gonna get tougher for Nick because they'll start maybe double-teaming and doing some things on him that we'll have to be prepared for. Cassius same with him, but when we're running and we're getting the ball up and down the floor; I think we went a six minute stretch where we didn't score a basket. And then we went on a five minute stretch with like two or four points, that's 11 minutes and we still scored 80 points. So I like the fact that we can score it, I like the fact even better that tonight we defended it better for the most part other than a little weak start.

On if he told the guys to get off to a good start…
I don't know if I look at it as sending a message, I'm looking at it this year that every game I wanna try to get a little bit better than we did the game before. Every practice I wanna try to get a little better than we did the practice before. I said that I was gonna push them hard and we all made some New Year's resolutions. I asked each player to put in two on basketball and one on life, and some of the ones on basketball I thought were really good. One guy, good player, said patience. So I copied him and said I'm gonna put that down on mine. Patience unless the effort is not there. And I thought sometimes tonight the effort wasn't in the second half so much, so my patience went to hell. But I thought Cassius gave one of my favorites, and I'll say his name on saying it, but I wanna give 100 percent 100 percent of the time. So each guy gave them and it was really one of the more fun things I've done here because they were really insightful. I told them to take some time, and then I told them at the end it's my job now to hold you accountable to your New Year's resolution, so I'm salivating at the opportunity to do that.

On Josh Langford's status…
He had the MRI last night I think. He's going to visit with a guy just because we're not going to take any chances on Josh. Hoping that's going to be in the next day. He didn't seem to do anything. It wasn't that he hurt it in a game or anything. It bothered him a little bit in warm-ups and just thought it was a little ankle tweak. Hopefully that's what it is. At the same time, Josh is a guy that works on his game so much, so I'm hoping that maybe there's just a little wear and tear on it and that'll be it. Hoping to know something by Friday for sure, but we decided we were going to keep him out of this game, and we'll have to determine if it's the next game.

On winning at home before playing five of the next seven on the road…
I think everybody in the league would agree that this year, everybody's trying to win all their home games. I hate to say 'split on the road' because that sounds bad, but I think this is a year where if people could split on the road, they're going to be pretty happy. There's just so many good teams out there and it's hard to win in everyone else's venue. Getting this home game, we've got one road win right now (in conference). Starting out 3-0 is big, but there's going to be some scheduling issues here, where five out of seven are on the road. If Josh isn't back, is that going to hurt us there too? Sometimes the schedule is going to dictate what goes on, so what we've got to be is resilient and be able to handle bouncing back if you lose a game and if you win a game, you're going to have to be able to get back to work. We got sloppy in the second half today. It's like we can't stand prosperity yet. We've got to do a better job with that, otherwise you win a couple games and you think you're really good. We're good, but I don't know how good yet.

On ball movement in the halfcourt and its emphasis this year…
I think we are moving the ball better and I think we're spacing a little better. That falls on me. I just think we're working harder at doing that. We're working harder at keeping the ball going, when you've got a beast like Nick inside. But I thought tonight, we wanted to run them out, ball screen and roll them a couple times. Cassius hit one of those guys on a great play that we had really worked on during the week. Guys are usually doing the things that we're talking about, and yet we're not calling stuff every time down, they're running good stuff, they're flowing into things a little better. But a long season yet.

On Cassius Winston's improvement in court presence and vision…
I fell in love with Cassius when he was a freshman or sophomore in high school. I said he could be the best passer since Magic Johnson. Yes I'm impressed with what he's done in that area. He sees the court. I say he can go games without turning it over once, because I think he's that smart. He had a great great holiday practice. He was engaged. We all, including him and probably including me, lost a little focus there tonight. As I said to him, there's two turnovers that never should've happened. I want him to accomplish some things that are pretty special for him, not just our team. He didn't force any shots tonight, hardly took a shot.

Northwestern Head Coach Chris Collins

Opening Statement...
Certainly Michigan State brought the fight to us tonight. We thought that we got off to a decent start offensively in the game, but I never thought we adjusted defensively to their physicality and to their speed. You can simulate it in practice and we do have a number of new guys… a number of freshman that have not played here and have not played against them. A couple of transfers. You try to simulate what they do and it is impossible in practice. Give them credit, (Cassius) Winston and (Nick) Ward are playing at an incredibly high level, they have all year. I thought Michigan State played with great energy and I thought both teams were kind of scoring early and neither team was really stopping each other and then they tightened up the screws defensively on us. We got in serious foul trouble. It is hard, they are a physical team which puts a lot of pressure on the officials with the way they post and drive the ball. I had three of my starters get in heavy foul trouble which I thought really affected the game as well. We have to learn from it, we have to get better. It is a long season of Big Ten basketball and one of the things is that you have to pick things up and learn from what happened to get ready for the next game.

On Michigan State's performance versus Northwestern not having their best night...
I think it is always both. I think a lot of times as a coach you think about the things that you didn't do and you get disappointed. You also have to understand that you are playing against a very good team that makes you do some things poorly at times. I thought the speed at which they play had us on our heels a little bit. In the first half I thought they did a very good job of getting really deep position. Being able to establish the paint, whether that was with a layup, with the post ups or transition. That helped set the tone and get us in foul trouble. I think a little bit of both… it wasn't our finest hour but I think a lot of it has to do with how good Michigan State is, especially on this home floor. It is a very difficult place to play.

On how good Michigan State is…
They are very good. What makes them good is that they understand their roles. They have a terrific point guard in Cassius and a dominant big man in Ward. All of those other guys do what they do really well. I am a big fan of (Kenny) Goins. I think what he brings to the team… you guys who cover them probably give him the praise he deserves… he is really a glue guy. He can pass, rebound, he is a facilitator, he can make a shot. You also have veteran wings with (Matt) McQuaid, (Kyle) Ahrens, and (Joshua) Langford when he is healthy. (Xavier) Tillman has really emerged as a really good option for them off the bench. They are developing their young kids so they have all of the pieces. When you have a veteran point guard who is elite, when you have a dominant big man, and then veterans around them that know what they are supposed to do and a team that is well connected and well coached as they are, they can play with anyone in the country… no doubt in my mind.

On the early timeouts in the second half…
Most of those in the second half were frustrations because it was just flat out breakdowns on our part. Give them credit, we gave up a pitch ahead three off of a made free throw of ours out of a timeout. That was frustration on my part and breakdowns that you can't have against a really good team. When you play on the road you have got to be careful because you can get caught with the timeouts in your pocket and they go on these big runs. You have to use them to stop the bleeding, so we had to use a couple in the first half and then a couple there early in the second half, but the ones in the second half were in my opinion... flat out breakdowns on our part.

On Nick Ward…
He is a terrific player. He has got himself in unbelievable shape. He is strong, he has got great moves down in the low post. He does a really good job of getting a really deep position. He is really difficult to play against because he is unorthodox...I say that in a positive way, he puts a lot of pressure on the officials because there is a lot of contact...in a good way, I mean that complementary. There is a lot of arm movement and body banging. He gets them in the bonus early and got our big guys in serious foul trouble and then what happens is he is able to get really deep position. As good as he is, when he gets it that deep you can try to send help but when he gets it that deep there is not a whole lot that you can do. I think he has worked really hard. He is engaged and a terrific player and a really tough guy to prepare for.

On keeping confidence up…
That is the resilience you have got to have. Things like this happen in the course of a Big Ten season when you play 20 games against really good teams. The teams that are going to come out of this thing are the ones that are able to bounce back from games like this where you kind of get it handed to you… there is no other way to sugarcoat it. We got outplayed in every way tonight. We have got to get home… we have a home game this weekend that we have a couple days to get ready for and we have to stop the bleeding. We have to find a way to put 40 minutes together in our next game to try and get a win to get ourselves back on track. Hopefully we are angry. Whenever I am part of something where you get beat like that, you get knocked back initially, but then there has got to be a little bit of anger too. It is not fun to get beat like that so you have to turn that emotion into controlled anger ready for your next game. Hopefully that is what we do as we get ready for this weekend.

Michigan State forward Xavier Tillman

On what sparked him and Nick Ward to have such a good game…
We just knew that Pardon was a really good big. He's averaging 14 and 10 or something like that, so we just took the challenge that we were gonna get on him and not let him get the shots he usually gets.

On what it was about today that made him unstoppable…
It's a Big Ten game, we're gonna treat every Big Ten game very importantly because we want to win the Big Ten outright. So every Big Ten game we take aggressively and not for granted.

On the focus going down to play Ohio State next…
We're hungry to play them. We need to watch a lot of film on them to get a handle on them. They're a good team, I've watched a little bit of film on them because my boy is on the team, but they're good and we're hungry to play them.

Michigan State Point Guard Cassius Winston

On the tempo of the game and how fast MSU played…
We just try to play the fastest pace possible and wear out teams. Once we get to the break, we step on their neck and that's our whole goal.

On his defensive performance and his battle against AJ Turner…
Just not being a liability on the defensive end. Just holding my own because they were changing their D, but I can play against a small or a big and that's just my mindset. I kind of relaxed after he got position on me the first time, but after that I fought him out and put him in tough situations.

On the next step for the team to be more cohesive on the road, especially against OSU…
Definitely, especially in a hostile environment and against a good team. We just gotta stick together and play Michigan State basketball, that's the goal for us.

Michigan State Forward Nick Ward

On what he noticed in the game…
They were playing me in single coverage so I just decided to exploit that right away.

On his good movement in the paint…
Yeah just keeping balanced and making them lose me so I have a better position on them. And getting easier shots, just things like that.

On what it means that MSU's points in the paint outscored NU's total points…
That was part of our game plan. Coach and I discussed how they were gonna cover me, so I attacked them right away. In the second half, I just gotta protect the ball better and get those shots. But I feel like we had a good team win today.

Players Mentioned

Aaron Henry

Xavier Tillman Sr.

Nick Ward

Cassius Winston