Post-Game Quotes vs. Western Michigan

Western Michigan at Michigan State
Post-Game Quotes

Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo

Opening Statement
"I feel good about a lot of things, but still things to be disappointed about. Definitely not very encouraged by our post defense in the first half, so I'll get rid of the negatives because I have a couple of excuses for them. We weren't very sharp in there. They went at us pretty good, I thought Titus Wright played his tail off and did a nice job. I love Artis White. Rocket (Watts) did a pretty good job (guarding him). That's Benny White's son and give him credit – unbelievably nice kid, doesn't force shots, he was impressive. I thought he had great command of the game. But I thought (Greg) Lee played pretty hard, missed some shots and the (Josiah) Freeman came in and played pretty good, (Rafeal) Cruz came in and played pretty good. That's a pretty good team, but we didn't play very good with our inside guys. When we got it in there we were shooting fall-aways, we never got to the free-throw line.

"I thought Rocket Watts played outstanding. He seven shots in the first half, which led us. He was so unselfish with the ball. He did a hell of a job to get (Joey) Hauser involved. I thought Aaron Henry played pretty well, he just missed some wide-open shots, including a couple layups. And I thought Josh Langford played one of his better games. He only got five or six shots, so he has to get more shots, but defensively and he threw a couple of great passes. We got back to moving the ball better, that was a big bright spot. We had 28 assists on 32 baskets and I thought we had some great passes in there. Including Steven (Izzo) in there at the end, although he had a turnover so he's probably not going to eat for the next month because he knows how much that ticks me off. We got a lot of play out of a lot of guys. In the second half Malik Hall played better. But we're not very consistent with our bigs right now, other than Joey. I gotta tell you, Joey had a hell of a day.

"Now, in saying all those things we just played our third game in five or six days. We're going to play four in eight days and two of them are going to be on the road against ACC teams. We did not practice at all, we had a walkthrough and a film session. This team can't do that right now. Not practicing, we're not Allen Iverson, we're not that good. We really need to cover things and when you're playing 11 guys seven minutes or more, that's still a problem right now. So, I have to live with some of those problems and keep building, but practice would really help. Hopefully we'll get a decent one in tomorrow and then were right back on the road. After the Virginia game, it gets back to a little bit of normalcy and I think that will really help us.

"So, I'm pleased because I thought the second half we played better. I'm pleased because it was nice to see Hauser and Rocket and even Aaron and Marcus (Bingham Jr.), when we went into him and he went to the hole, we played pretty well. Gabe Brown didn't play bad, he got some rebounds, finally, so I guess there were more positives. I just didn't think we were defending as well. It's the first time we didn't defend as well from the three. They shot 38 percent from the three.

On the play of Rocket Watts…
It's funny, when I listen to people outside and you wonder 'Can Rocket play here?' 'Can Aaron handle this?' Rocket was fun to coach. I see him getting so much better. You talk to him about his shot and he works on it in practice. He's just getting better, and better, and better. He couldn't play at the end because his legs were shot. I could have played him and if I did, he ends up with 14 points. He came up to me and said 'Coach, I think have six or seven assists.' He sounded like Draymond Green – 'Coach, you have to play me or I'm gonna kill ya so I can get 10 rebounds.' I really enjoyed that. It wasn't, 'Coach, I need to get 15 points.' It was, 'Coach, I need to get some more assists.' I just thought he was just what you said, he was much more under control and pushing the ball. He got beat a few times, which is odd for him. Some of it was in our coverages, too. White was so good for them – I loved the way Artis played, he was a load to cover, because he was so much more under control than some of the guards we played. So, I still think Rocket did a good job on him, I thought Aaron did a good job on him.

On being 5-0 and being worried about some winning fatigue…
I never know. It's a new team. This is what I told Aaron and Foster and Josh, captains have to take care of this time right now. It's not easy. Not only winning but so many games in a short period of time. We're going to get home at 4 a.m. this week (after Virginia) because we play the late game.
But, I don't want to take anything away from (WMU head coach) Clayton Bates, I thought he did a hell of a job. They run their stuff really nice. But, I probably will never hire TK (assistant coach Thomas Kelley) because he gave them all of our secrets, but then again, I love TK. I told our team, TK is going to know our stuff, as good or better than we know it. He did a good job. I told you, don't take anything away from them. I was disappointed in some things, but they did a nice job.
So, I don't think I'm worried about it, I'm really not. It's not like were cocky, we haven't played well enough. But, as you know, psychologically, I'm still battling how these kids are mentally. I'm still trying to help them through that. There going to be a little fatigued. Tomorrow we have to have a decent practice. It might be short, but we have to get through some things, both in the post and maybe on those ball screens. We'll get better at that.
So, I'm not worried about it. I'm concerned because I think we have to get better and better quickly because you know Virginia is going to run those circles, that offense. We've played them enough times and if you rest on that you're in trouble. And they have a lot better shooters than they did last year, so we'll have our work cut out.

On Aaron Henry from a leadership standpoint and what kind of message sends...
Well, let me tell you, and like I've said, I'm an open book on most of my stuff, and so what happened was he was right on time for one, but these guys, they get tested, and they have to have breakfast, and we're constantly switching the times, because on days when another teams is testing, we change the times and this and that he knew what time. He was probably three or four minutes late, the one other time he was right on time, and I just said, that I told him the time he was on time if it happens again... because we feel like, the good old days, your culture was so, rock solid. And I'm saying this tongue in cheek, and I'm saying it as serious as I can, people are so ridiculous out there right now that you try to discipline somebody for something. So all I'm trying to do... when I tell them (Mateen) Cleaves sat for half the game, and I said 'see that banner up there, that guy is my best player that maybe ever played for me, and he made a mistake, and missed some classes or something, and so, I mean, you've got to get back to that, there has to be some discipline and accountability and our society has zero, and our programs don't allow to have as many because people fear that everybody will transfer if you tell them something. And I love the way Aaron handled it, when he walked in there, and I said, 'Aaron, sorry you can't be in the meeting now you're late,' and he waited for me, came into my office, and said 'I already know, you're right.' Do I think it's a good thing? No, because he's been my best player, my most improved player, and he's been the funnest to coach. And so maybe that sends a message but I ain't in to sending messages I'm too far in my career to send messages, I'm just trying to keep a culture that I think has been so good, and there's been better players than Aaron Henry or Rocket Watts that have gone through stuff, and those guys ended up pretty damn good. So I'm trying to recapture, let's not let the little things get away, because this day and age, nobody cares about the little things, except maybe me. And, when you talk to them. I hope they bring him up.

When I say it was zero, it was zero, when I say he handled it well, he handled it well. When I say was I trying to make a point, no no, I really wasn't, I had already warned him, it was just the deal and yet understand this, these kids are going through, I mean I laugh when I talked to Lindsay, because he kind of knows, these kids have gone through something that's... I mean I'm changing stuff every day, because I'm trying to say, 'Okay, you've got to be in by 8:30 now because we've got classes so you've got to test before at 7:30, and if I get a weekend and I say okay let's go until 10 o'clock, well we can't do that because the other teams got to test and I mean it's a circus, and yet our people have been awesome. And those nurses are phenomenal. We send out group texts, and you and I know it's a choice whether those players look at them because that phone, they sleep with it, they eat with it, I think they play basketball with it, I think they've all got little things in their pockets that they keep it in, so there just has to be no excuses and I'm not even worried about it this much (motions with fingers), so I went a long time to talk about it because I know it how gets with the social media when somebody does this. Aaron Henry's been my favorite guy this year and he will remain that way.

On Joey Hauser and conversations with him on his shooting form...
I brought him into my office a couple of times, he'd been a little hurt with the knee, but, when your new guy on the block... that was what's so impressive tonight, here's Aaron Henry, not having a great game but it seems kind of year, his team, he's yelling 'run this for Joey, run this for Joey.' With Rocket Watts, that impressed me, because that tells me that they know Joey is not only a good player, but he's unselfish, he gave Rock a hell of a pass for a three, and Joey had four assists out there, so I'm really pleased for him because he's trying to fit in, and trying to fit in's not easy, when you come with a team that's got some players back, and I think he's done a good job of fitting in, but I really give the Gabes and Rockets and definitely Aaron and Frosty (Foster Loyer) and all those guys a lot of credit because they really wanted to go to him tonight and it was fun to watch and, he shot it well. Am I surprised? No he's that kind of shooter, he hasn't shot it well this year, just like Aaron Henry is going to have his moments, but yeah, we had a couple meetings, just to say 'hey loosen up,' he's an intense kid, and sometimes lets those things bother them like all shooters do. You know shooters are like pitchers, they're like goalies, they're like field goal kickers, they're all, they get all caught up in things that may go wrong. And I think this was a good lesson for him, I told him today, I was kind of hard on him in the last game and I did it on purpose, I wanted to see how he would handle it. And man, he handled it good, and he even had a sore knee today, and I thought just played his tail off and what really impressed me was that second half because he wasn't very good defensively first half either. He was really good in the second half.

On the depth of the roster and how different guys can come in clutch in different games and the importance of that with games that have quick turnarounds like this one...
Well, it's not only the quick turnarounds but you're right on the money, that really helps in that, but it's also going to help when, unfortunately, something happens and one of our guys get the virus and so I'm trying to prepare for both. And yet the depth is good, like I've told you, because we don't have enough guys that have raised above it, but we've got a lot of guys that are very good players and, you're going to see more out of A. J. Hoggard, you're going to see more out of Julius Marble, I like it, and if I can get Marky (Marcus Bingham) going a little bit stronger down there, I love my depth and it's another game when our bench scoring, we must be averaging 25 to 28 points off the bench, and with those assists, I tells you that we're sharing the ball.

The only negative stat for me is, very seldom do we get beat on second-chance points and we got killed, 15-6, so I think our depth is one of the things that really is going to make us good. And hopefully, really good as time goes on, if we can figure out, it's a little more stressful on me and (associate head coach) Dwayne Stephens, we're kind of trying to manage the minutes, a little more stressful, but I think it's going to pay great dividends in the end.

On how useful it is to get long-range shooting from Joey Hauser...
Well, you said a couple and maybe it is a couple you know Jaren (Jackson Jr.) was pretty good at it and then you go back, A.J. Granger. I mean, we haven't had many that can shoot it like Joey at 6-9. But what I think is going to be impressive about Joey as it goes because they're gonna start running at him, he's a very, very good passer. So we're going to be able to play through him a little bit more and that's going to be really beneficial to us. Because he's a very unselfish kid, almost to a fault I thought he passed up a couple of shots. I thought Aaron passed up a couple shots. I thought Rocket passed up one shot you know he's getting better. He was so good tonight as far as what he was saying and when he was thinking. Not happy with the game the way it went, but I'm really happy with some of the players because I think they're making steps. It's gonna make us a better team, and Joey's one of those guys that I'm expecting those kind of nights from them to be very honest. Because he was efficient, you know, 14 shots 24 points, 10 rebounds, like to see a few more offensive rebounds from him and Aaron. And we'll get there as we as we get a rotation down, so guys can feel comfortable where they are.

On what he'd like to see done better against the bigger posts...
I think what you were asking me though is Titus Wright was a load, what can you do better. Well, we doubled the post. I mean he's a load, until you figure out that Purdue's got a 7-4 guy. He's got arms like an octopus. Iowa's got a seven-footer. Wisconsin's got a 6-11 guy. Illinois' got a 7-1. I mean right now that's a weakness for us, you know we don't have great size. That's why Mady (Sissoko) getting him in there some was important. But that's where our guys got to get better at fronting and doing some things that we haven't had a chance, Graham, to work on as much because of the lack of practice time. So, I told DJ, we're gonna have to have 6:30 practices just for the bigs. I'm half kidding and half serious. We need more practice time. We were not able to do anything very physical nothing in the summer, very little in the fall, and then it reared its ugly head tonight.

On what he'd like to see from Marcus Bingham in that matchup...
Well, I didn't want him to get the ball in and where he got it. You know Marky (Marcus Bingham) let him get the ball in so deep, that's what upset DJ and normally he is blocking some shots. And that guy, that guy was good man; he had that little jump hook he used this body - he had that wide body, you know. Don't underestimate I mean, in him and (B. Artis) White, those two guys can play a lot of places. Some of the other guys you know, I didn't think (Greg) Lee played as good as he's been playing watching him. But we let the ball go in too deep, and I didn't think we had quite enough pressure on the ball. I thought they ran their stuff really well, and went in on us on purpose. And, and then we're going to have to look to dig down from our guards a little bit more because I think he's had like two assists in a year, so he doesn't give up much. But we just didn't have time to go over all that stuff, we had a walk-through yesterday that was it. We had two things in a row here. We played Detroit - they hadn't played a game with all those new people. And we had no idea what they were going to run. And then we played these guys they played one game of their four because they had three canceled. And that is difficult for us who's more of a prep team. I think my assistants do an unbelievable job. I think we're really good at preparation. But if you don't have time for preparation, or you don't have film to watch and almost feel guilty you know my wife said, 'what are you doing home.' I got nothing to watch, you know, I am watching High School AAU games to figure it out on some of the guys, or I'm watching one that were transferred from somewhere. And I didn't get the watch, much of their actual offense, other than against Butler, so that makes it a little more difficult than in fairness to the players. Wasn't like we didn't do our job, meaning the coaches, but there wasn't much time or much job you could do, when your sample size is one game and they've got four or five games on you. Makes it difficult.

Final statement on fans...
I'd like to say this in closing, if it's okay. I got to sneak over to the football game for a minute and, you know, we got to hang in there with Mel because he's been through it. I think of my situation has been tough, but also want to thank all the people out there you know. The cardboard cutouts and the number of them. It's starting to fill our arena I'm hoping that we get some from football too. We've got one of the nicer arenas right now as far as you look around the country, and I think got to give people credit to our marketing people, but you got to give credit to our fans who have bought these cutouts and make them look a little better. I think we should pay a little more for the cutouts and motorize them so they can yell at those officials. That's the only thing they're not doing a very good job of, you know, but other than that, it's been amazing. The support we've gotten in a different way so I just want to thank all the people, and I'm going to tell you, we're gonna find a way to fill up that bottom we got a couple of ideas. I'm going to do some things for some of the former people that I've had we by next week. We should have that in next week, and we're going to have some fun with it at the same time. But thank you to all the people out there who have really helped us or helped football. In this incredibly crazy time I greatly appreciate it so to our players, and I look forward to seeing you. Well I guess I won't see you, Virginia, but I'll look forward to talking to you after. We're gonna have to play better than we did, but it'll be another good game for us, because, you know, in Notre Dame, it was a team that could really shoot and played a lot of zone in duke it was a team that really came after you defensively. And I think Virginia is a little bit of both, yeah they got upset but usually solid defensively. And they run a very tough offense to guard, and they've got a lot more shooters this year including Sam Hauser, who's a damn good player. But they've got more shooters this year last year they shot the ball terribly to be very blunt about it. And Tony (Bennett) is a hell of a coach so this is going to be good for us. I just got to figure out how we practice and save some energy, and that'll be my job playing that late game. But, appreciate all you appreciate you guys for doing this Zoom stuff is not the same as having us there and hopefully our players so we'll give you everything they can give me a. Thank you. Thank you to our fans for what they've done. Appreciate it.

Redshirt junior forward Joey Hauser

On what sparked the team in the second half…
"I think defensively we had to do a much better job. We were scoring the ball pretty well right away. I think the past two games we didn't score as much on assisted baskets and this game, we picked that up. The first two games, I think we scored 60 buckets on 53 assists so tonight we did a better job with that. Finally, we extended the lead there. They were just kind of hanging around and hanging around and we just kept talking in the huddle that we wanted to extend that lead. What really picked up is we started moving the ball better and we were getting assisted buckets, which really helped us big-time, and we stepping up on the defensive end."

On 3-pointer he hit from Rocket…
"I didn't know how deep I was. I just shot in rhythm. When you shoot in rhythm, you don't really know how deep you are. There's a couple where I need to get closer to the line, and coach is always talking to me about getting closer to the line. I tned to back up too far, but I didn't know how deep I was on that one."

On the different in getting shots from the perimeter…
"I think just confidence. The first couple of games, I missed some outside shots. I wasn't shooting it quite as much from the outside. It took me a while into game rhythm shooting the ball and I knew it was going to take a couple of games because I hadn't played in such a long time. A huge credit goes to my teammates. They continuously kept finding me and they've had faith in me even though I've missed a couple of shots through these first couple of games. But they've had faith in me and told me to just keep shooting. That was a huge part of why I knocked down a couple of shots tonight."
On whether he felt a night like this coming…
"I knew one of these games I would shoot it pretty well. I just want to keep shooting it well and keep finding my teammates to get them open shots as well. I just felt more confident coming into this game with my shot."

Sophomore Guard Rocket Watts

On what being fun to coach means to him…
"It feels really good to hear coach say that. I just try to come out and feed my guys and give them the ball. When everyone else eat, it feels good. That's basically my job. I just come in and watch a lot of film on Cassius and see the spots where people be open, players be open. That's just my job and that makes feel like I'm doing great at it right now."

On balancing coming off a big game…
"I got a lot of players around me that can play. Joey had a great game, Aaron had a great game, Tommy, Kithier did too. I just try to come out and feed them, knowing I was fatigued in the second half. When I feel like that, I Just feel like I can push the ball and find them in their spots and hopefully they can knock it down. I feel like I did a great job moving the ball and finding those guys."

On Joey Hauser…
"Joey's a great player. He's fun to play with and he's a great leader. He works on his shot a lot. When I pass it to him, I feel like he's going to make it every time I pass it. He's got great confidence on his self and it's fun playing with him. I'm just keep swinging the ball to him and he's going to keep knocking them down.

Western Michigan coach Clayton Bates:
"We were short-handed and it's been a crazy, wild week with our team. Our guys battled through adversity and competed as well as they did against Michigan State, so we're incredibly proud. We had three players not able to play _ two starters from the Butler game and our first player off the bench."

On COVID-19 issues...
"We've played two games and our effort has been outstanding and we have to carry that over into every game we play. Michigan State sets the standard for how hard you play and our guys did not back down. Hopefully, we can learn from that."

On Joey Hauser:
"He's a very good player. You have to give up something when you play anybody, and we felt like we had to make them make shots over us and Hauser made six 3s. They're a good team and when he gets going like that, they're really tough."

Related News

Players Mentioned

Gabe Brown

Malik Hall

Joey Hauser

Aaron Henry

Foster Loyer

Rocket Watts

Related Videos