Post-Game Quotes: Rutgers
2/20/2019 9:26:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo
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Opening Statement…
I told you it would be a little strange and it was a little strange. I think there's a great appreciation for Nick Ward. I think those guys realize that when the ball goes in there we missed a lot of open shots in there. I thought we didn't play very good at all the first half. I don't know if we had the jitters. Xavier missing layups, Aaron Henry missing layups, we just had a lot of guys that missed layups, and then that hooking call. I mean I guess again I don't blame the officials, I blame the coaches because those things are such momentum changers. They went on a 14-0 run after that and I'm not saying it was or it wasn't it's just you could call that every time, so I hope that rule gets changed. At halftime we just said we've got to play better. I mean I didn't think my best players played very well the first half and then in the second half they played really well. Kenny, Cassius, Xavier and McQuaid and Cassius got kind of worn out at the end. He had a couple turnovers and he hadn't turned it over the last four minutes then we turned it over two or three times, but in general I'm considering what this team has been through. That was a hell of a second half against a very, very tough team for us to play especially right now, I mean that's the biggest team. I think the game was won at maybe the start of the second half with Aaron Henry getting four rebounds almost in a row. You out-rebound them 45-31 and that's more like old Michigan State. We didn't shoot it very well, but a lot of that was due to those layups and Cassius was great the second half.
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On Xavier's resiliency….
Well Xavier, I never worry about Xavier. I mean he's one of the toughest guys on my team. He makes his free throws, he gets ten rebounds, his defense is unbelievable, he's very good defensively and he's got to work on his layups. We'll try and do that at maybe midnight tonight or whenever you're allowed to again.
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On the recognition he receives from other coaches…
To be honest with you, I think he's one of the best coaches and that's not so we can each praise on each other, but he's done a great job with that team. That's a young team, he's got a lot of nice parts and they play ten guys. I'm telling you they're going to beat some people yet. I hope we don't run into them in the tournament because I think they're pretty good defensively, they're long, they're athletic, they make some shots. They haven't been shooting great, I don't know what they shot from the three tonight, 25 percent, but early on they made a couple. Like I said, I thought the game was won because we rebounded. We worked on it, we talked about it, we talked how good they are at it and I take my hat off to my team in that way and I give a lot of credit to Steve and his team for how they played.
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On the spark after halftime…
That was a result of halftime. I'm getting tired of having to be Knute Rockne at halftime, so we've got to do a better job. I think I'm going to have halftime at the beginning of the game and then have another halftime at halftime so that'll be a good thing and I think we're a little bit disheveled. It looked like everybody was, I say we're going to get them two points here, two points there, four points here, three rebounds here and it looked like everybody wanted to show that they could be the guy. We took a couple bad shots, made a couple bad plays and I understand that you know we made a couple of bad defensive switches because we had a couple guys in there that just never play together. We're going to have to live with a little bit of that, but second half we played harder and played through it and that was a difference. Whatever they thought at halftime it was better.
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On Kyle Ahrens…
Yep. I don't know anymore, but yep. I tried to put him back in, couldn't go back in.
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On working harder being the difference in the second half…
I really believe it was, especially the wings. Kenny, that was the worst half of basketball I mean he had two balls that went right through his hands and he's been playing really good. I think it's funny everybody wants their chance, but watch what you wish for and I think our players have a better appreciation for how valuable Nick is because he's a presence down there. They've got to respect him down there and I think for Xavier and Kenny maybe that was a hell of a thing to throw Thomas Kither in. I mean that was the biggest group of human beings that I've seen on the court in a while and he did a pretty good job considering what we threw him into.
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On setting up plays for Aaron Henry…
No we wanted to do it because we thought we could get him going that way. He's just got to learn to get going a little and I thought that would be the way to do it, so we did run some things for him early. He missed a couple great layups, but as I said, I think everybody was excited and everybody was a little nervous. It's just going to be we're going to grind, we're going to grind from here on out because we don't have the same types of players that we had and so we've got to figure out different ways to do it. We did some different things in the second half that I thought we executed very well, ran that backdoor play and it was big. We're just going to grow with our team right now you know we're going to figure out what they can do. We've got to be putting them in the position to be successful you know, with Kyle I don't know how. But hell, if we get one injured a game maybe we can pick up a couple of you guys for the last game, who knows.
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On the synergy between him and Cassius…
We do, the problem is I need him for forty-minutes and that's not humanly possible, but when he's guarding and give Steve credit they put him in that running, they call it runner back and forth just to wear him down and we couldn't get him out of that. I guarantee he's going to sleep good tonight because he did play better defensively the second half, he did push the ball, we put him in more ball screens, but we've got to play better too, and we will play better. I really believe we needed to get some of that out of us. We, as a coaching staff, have to figure out who we can go to, where and try to exploit some things and get some guys baskets that they can make and not putting people in positions like that one time I put Kyle Ahrens at the point to do something. That was completely my fault and that's a case of putting somebody in a position to fail instead of putting someone in a position to be successful. They made their mistakes, I made my mistakes, we'll all try and regroup and see what we can do this weekend.
On going to the ball screen with Cassius Winston…
I told him that at halftime. I said 'This is what player of the year candidates, All-Americans do now. We've gotta go on your back a little bit here until we get everybody else regrouped.' When we started to get guys to get to the boards, we ran a couple things, got a couple of those slips. We executed some really good things. Some of them were just put on the chalkboard because we had to change as we were going just because of the personnel we had in there. I give my players a lot of credit. I gave them a lot of guff tonight and I gave them a lot of credit after the game. That's kind of the way it works. Cassius was sensational at times, and he was sensational beat up. He turned that one ball over late in the game and I said 'are you kidding me? Are you dead?' He said 'yes.' I said 'well you can be dead in a minute from now, but not until then.' He agreed. With all those guys, when you go through stuff, whether it's with Nick (Ward), whether it's with Cassius, everybody grows together. I feel like he's really starting to understand what he's gotta do. A little more demonstrative on calling a play or the defensive stuff. But, man, I'm asking him to do everything but this press conference right now. Somehow I'm going to convince him that that's a privilege, not a problem.
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On how he told his team that they had to get to the free throw line…
We did, and we started spreading it out a little bit, running some things. The 20 for 22 from the line, the 45 and 31 from the rebounding were the two reasons we won. We did get a little more physical. We did take it in there a little more. Cassius took it in there and got beat up a little bit. But it was hard because in the first half, we were trying to go in there, but their length was so big, and there are so many of them. I don't think we did a great job. That was probably an interesting time for Xavier (Tillman). We were driving with our guards a couple times and I said 'you're driving into seven footers.' The game plan was to come to a jump stop and kick out, because they do a great job of rallying to the ball. We didn't adjust to all those things. We're gonna have to do a better job as we go. But we have a little time now where we're gonna work on some things. We'll get a little better, put in a few things and be ready to go.
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On lack of rotation in the second half and level of concern with pace of play…
Full speed ahead. We're just gonna go for it. We're not gonna change anything. When they're tired, they're gonna be tired. But there's other people playing 38 minutes a game. I don't have any excuse. I've gotta be somewhat appreciative of a guy like Cassius, giving me everything he had and I've gotta be somewhat demanding that he's gotta give me more. Just the way it is. But if I didn't think he could do it, I wouldn't put it on him. I was really concerned if Xavier (Tillman) could go from 22 minutes to into the 30's. He played 33. Twice he pulled the jersey to come out. Once I agreed and once I told him to take a hike. 'I can't take you out my man.' I think we're learning. Our staff's gotta continue to do a better job, and we will. We're gonna find a way to get a little more time. We're just down so much. Couldn't take Cassius out, couldn't take (Matt) McQuaid out as much. But if you look at other teams in our league, Michigan's playing seven guys, somebody else is playing eight guys. These guys (Rutgers) plays 10 or 11, so that made it a little more difficult. For the circumstances, to play that team after losing Nick (Ward), that was tough in a way. Now our semi-weakness is their strength in numbers. To out-rebound them 45 to 31, damn good job.
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On Xavier Tillman's maturation this season…
He can produce at a high level. Xavier Tillman is one of the more interesting guys I've had here. When I think of how he came in, this chubby little rollie-pollie guy, big chubby little rollie-pollie guy. But what he's done with his body, his brain. His grades are unbelievable. That was surprising what he's done with his game. I always tell guys to not be mediocre, if you're gonna go for it, go for it. He has done it off the court, he's done it with his body, he's done it in the classroom, and he's done it with his teammates. He's probably as respected of a guy as we have on our team. He's gone against Nick (Ward) every day. That's helped him. I gave (Joshua) Langford all of the out-of-bounds plays today, get everybody down and it was fun to watch Nick. They call him Coach Ward now. He's done a lot of good things these last two days in practice. This is going to bring our team closer together. Whether we'll have enough, I don't know, we'll find out. I'm not counting us out.
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On the first half…
I don't know. That's a good question. This team is really close. The finality of that I did think affect us some. I had the meeting the next morning on Nick (Ward). I tried to nip that in the bud. But you get in the game, I think they had an appreciation when Nick gets doubled or when Nick's running down that lane and guards are sagging a little bit. I said at halftime 'hey, appreciate that guy a little more than you did?' Everybody did. The problem is I've gotta tell Nick that he makes sure they don't appreciate you for a few days here. You've gotta just stay on them about what they've gotta do. We've gotta get better at some things, but man there were some big bodies in there. When the ball went in, I think Xavier (Tillman) had some problems in the first half. We talked to him about using the rim and finishing around. I thought he did a helluva job in the second half. Â Â Â Â Â
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Senior guard Matt McQuaid
On the first half versus the second half...
It was kind of just an up and down first half. We got behind and had a lot of turnovers. A lot of dumb plays that we just don't usually do and missed a lot of good layups. We have to fix that this coming week, but second half we bounced back and played better to get the job done.
On second-half defense…
Like we did last game, everybody did their job. We listened to the coaches on the scouting report and game plan and then went out there and executed. Â We had a couple of slip-ups, but overall I thought we did a pretty good job in the second half.
Senior forward Kenny Goins
On the change from the first to the second half...
We made a lot of small errors in the first half, like turnovers, which I was a lot a part of. Once we straightened up our game, we got into halftime and just corrected things coming out.
On getting off to better starts...
We talk about it a lot. It is definitely a point of emphasis. It is a lot easier said than done, but we have got to figure it out, especially before the tournament. Â
Sophomore forward Xavier Tillman
On different guys getting more minutes...
There were new guys stepping up. Thomas (Kithier) playing more minutes than usual, Marcus (Bingham Jr.) playing some and Gabe (Brown) getting in there. It is just new territory for new guys, so we had to adjust, that is what we did in the second half. We adjusted to all the mistakes that we made and capitalized on all the good looks that we had.  Â
Junior guard Cassius Winston
On what worked offensively...
I think really we got stops, that was the big thing. We got stops and rebounds which helped lead to us pushing and moving in transition so we could make those offensive plays. Â Â
On changing roles with the injuries...
I have to be more aggressive and take the opportunities when I can. Â Â I am never going to force anything and push the issue. We have a lot of good guys that stepped up and played really well today, so I am just playing my role to the best of my ability. Â
On the injuries...
We have to reach another level. I am up for a lot of things and playing for a lot of things and this team is in a really good position right now to accomplish our goals, but that is going to take everyone reaching another level.
Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell
Opening Statement…
It was a really tough game for us. Michigan State did a great job on the backboards. Coach Izzo is still the best. I thought we could kind of hang around a little bit. We didn't make many free throws, which didn't help us. Obviously, Cassius is the best point guard in the league and he played like it tonight.
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On Xavier Tillman stepping up in absence of Nick Ward…
Coach Izzo is the main guy. As long as he's on the sideline, Michigan State does better. Michigan State is Michigan State. The big guys have to play a lot. They're good players. They rebound the heck out of the basketball. Now they just have to play longer minutes. Their system is in place. They're going to rebound no matter who checks in the game. They're going to play hard. They'll be well coached. I hope those guys get better and get back on the court soon. Michigan State's got that culture and the best coach in the country. They'll get all the guys… whoever plays… and they'll play hard and they'll play the right way. It's a part of basketball.
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On Winston performing better in the second half…
He got to the free throw line. He got in the lane and made some plays. He's a hard guard to stay in front of. We didn't do a great job on screen coverage, so that hurt us. He broke away and got some open three's. They got second shots… some kick outs. So he really hurt us in the six minute stretch there when we kind of lost it. They really did a good job on the backboards getting second opportunities, so credit them. They're the best team in the league and it's a tough place to play.
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On Michigan State getting four offensive rebounds and the momentum…
That's what they do. It's not like we were surprised. We showed them clip after clip after clip. This is a great rebounding team and we knew at some point in time that we were going to have a stretch like that. We thought we were doing a good job getting stops. We did a good job of stopping them on those first possessions once we didn't give them up in transition. We sat down five on five. You have to finish the deal with rebounding and we obviously didn't do it. We called a quick timeout after that and tried to settle our guys down. They were on a little roll.
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On Rutgers playing physical and momentum change…
Well, they're a good basketball team. It's a 40 minute game. They're at home and they made some shots. They got to the free throw line. They've got good players. I thought Cassius did a great job of keeping his team right where they needed to be. It was a two-possession game always and then we went down with 12 minutes less and they kind of kept grinding us there a little bit.
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On getting better offense…
Our offensive numbers are way up. It's a tough place to play and they're great defensively, too. We have to make more free throws. We're not a good free throw shooting team. Points aren't our problem. We gave up too many points to them and we never get out-rebounded like that. We're one of the better rebounding teams in the league. That's more of a problem for us. Our numbers offensively for us are up from last year a great deal. Four out of our top seven are freshmen. We're the youngest team… one of the youngest teams in the league. We're going to keep going and get better and better. We'll get better offensively as time comes.
