Post-Game Quotes: Illinois

Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo

Opening Statement...
I don't even know where to start. Shame how inept I thought we were offensively in the first half. We didn't play very well. Just couldn't make shots, either. We had some good shots. Max (Christie) and Gabe (Brown) had some good shots; it just didn't go in. But I give a lot of credit to Illinois. They played well. Frazier might be my favorite player in the league, because fifth year guy that started the process, understood the process went through losing and getting his butt kicked and just came back, came back, came back, decided to give it another run when nobody thought he would. He was the best player on the floor. Not Kofi (Cockburn), (Trent) Frazier, he did it on the offensive end. He did on the defensive end, played hard and he made a big shot when it mattered, he didn't do much second half went in time. He made plays. I'm sick and tired of the officiating. The consistency, and I'll just give you one example. There, guys go down, we come down, they stop it. My guy goes down, we call, they go down. Let it play sick of it. So, I'm sick of that and the consistencies inside. Tough game to officiate. I guess you got to give (Jacob) Grandison credit. Hit two at the end of the shot clock, one when there was no time left and he just threw it up there. Those things cost you. Their guy goes 7-for-9 from the free throw line. My second-best free throw shooter has a chance in a one and one. And and by the way, I thought Julius played his tail off. But it could have been a five-point play that really got us energized, and he missed the front end and one on one. Their guy makes 7-of-9. We didn't guard them very good inside, but it's hard to guard them when they just back in, back in, back. I'm sick of that. But we didn't do a good enough job. So, all in all, very disappointed with our first half. second half, we score 52 points against the best defensive team in the league, and we only scored 54 or five at Penn State. I think there's always times when you can learn from games. I don't like learning from a loss, but I thought we learned something from a loss. Second half, we competed harder, just couldn't get it over that 10 point. We had it down to two or three, and then they get it to five, you just can't keep bouncing back and that then to give him credit on that last shot. I don't know most people want him taking it.

About Tyson at the end and what was different about the way he played...
I think some of it was where they play it. You know, with Kofi, they do what we call Shaq-ing it. They drop him to come off those ball screens open and then we started screening it because we wanted to get some threes because we thought we had to get back in the game. And to his credit, he made them but you know, a little bit too much, too late, but I give him credit, he had a big game. AJ played pretty well too, but those big turnovers can cost you. You know, you don't get to do that against good teams, and we had 11 turnovers for the game one in the last minute. You'd probably be satisfied with that. I think it was the first time we shot under 70%, almost the second time we shot under 80% in the last 10 games from the line and just happened. Rebounds were decent. Considering the problem was we going to double off of Grandison, and we barely even got a chance to because he hit that first one before we started doubling, and I give him credit made the shots.

About if Tom Izzo learned anything from or about Tyson Walker...
No, no, no, no, no, no. I didn't learn anything from Tyson. I know he can shoot the ball. We competed in the second half. I didn't think we competed first. I don't think we moved the ball very well. Yeah, we made some shots, and it's a shame. I mean, there's nobody in this team that works harder than Max and Gabe and a couple of them, they were wide open and just not going in right now. Not through lack of effort, not through lack of time spent, just the way it works. But Tyson is a good shooter. We're not going 1-on-1. That's not the way we're going to win games. But he helped us, helped us some at the two. But that was a team that had a bunch of small guards too, so understand that's different than playing against like a Purdue or like a Rutgers or Michigan, you know, that fave bigger guards. So, the best thing I got out of today was not Tyson played well. I'm proud of him. That's the thing I got of today was we competed in the second half and really made enough plays to come back. We just couldn't get it under 10. And that was the battle cry in the huddles to get it under get it under 10 and then potential five-point play. Oh my. Julius is shooting 92% in the last five games and poor kid just missed it, but he played his tail off.

On what do you think Brad has done to elevate Illinois and make them so tough…
I think Brad has done a lot. I think he's done a hell of a job with him. I really do and I think Kofi's helped and a guy here and there, but the straw that stirs the drink is Frazier, in my humble opinion. If I could make a trade right now, I'd trade him for me. Illinois, you can come here, coach, be a player coach. I just think he gets it and I think that's because he's been through all the crap that most of these kids aren't going to go through because they're going to leave places. He's been through it. He's been the common denominator there. He's been Brad's guy, like Mateen was my guy and when you got your guy, that's tougher than nails, that'll do it on both ends, you got something special. I think Brad has done a phenomenal job. You know, we talk all the time. I think he's got a couple of pretty good players, but he's got a warrior and great teams that have a chance to get to the Final Four have to have a warrior and he's a warrior.

On the toughest stretch that you've seen the team play in a while…
Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, I thought there were some tough stretches against Indiana.
It's a tough stretch, at the end against Wisconsin, some tough stretches against Michigan, but if I looked at it against a team of that quality, I'd say that was the hardest we played. It helps when the ball goes in the basket. You feel a little better about yourself and for some reason, you know, we went from, I mean, unfortunately, ranked wise, we're still right up there, but the STAT people, but we haven't been as good offensively, I mean, you can't be as good when your two best shooters are struggling. I think when you hit a three or when you get a dunk or when you do something, sure, it energizes everybody. Our crowd was great because we didn't get much to cheer about the first half, and I thought they really, really helped us, almost willed us to a win, but sooner or later the players play the game and it's the people on the court that have to make a play or not make a mistake. The "my bads". If I had to coin one phrase that if I'm ever lucky enough to have grandchildren and that kid ever utters the word "my bad." It could be a bad day grandpa's house.

On Bingham challenging Kofi more and if not, getting him in foul trouble and making him work a bit…
What a tough thing with Mark because he can shoot it and yeah, that's exactly what we wanted to do, but we have to get in there and do that. It was a tough matchup for him. Kofi is a better player than he was last year. I think you'd agree if you're an Illini and I think Brad's done a better job of going to him. One thing Kofi has done is he's developed a left hand, so now you can't play him one way or the other. I think he's been more aggressive. I look at the film last year, to me, he's a lot more demonstrative and a lot more aggressive than he was a year ago. Or maybe it's the fact that Brad has done such a great job at getting him the ball. The entry passes are easy, and I thought Grandison did an unbelievable job, but it's pretty easy when he's so deep. When you're trying to throw a pass to a guy and he's posting at the three-point line, you don't get the same entries. That's why Julius has had some success and we'll keep trying to do what we can do, but certain matchups aren't good.

On the competition today was indicative of kind of turning that corner of being great, like other teams in your career…
I think over my career it's been interesting listening to people talk. I think people think I golf all summer. I think they think I take most of the year off and start coaching in February, and, oh shazam, we will be good in February and March. Let me tell you something, I go coach harder in December and January, but at the same time, I do think this is one of the rare times in my career that I felt like we made some progress with a loss. I don't, I don't ever prescribe to that loss was good for you. It's only good for you if you don't have leaders and you don't have competitors that are trying to win every game. I don't know. I mean, we took a step in the right direction. We made some big plays. We really, really got after it defensively, we swarmed them a couple of times. You got to give Grandison credit. I mean, if I would have told you as an Illini, here my man in the front, that Frazier would be 3-9, and that includes his last one, so he was 2-8 going in there and Plummer was 3-9 and 0-3 from the three, and Frazier is 1-7, I'd say the Spartans have a pretty good chance to win, I don't care what Kofi does. I don't think anybody expected Grandison to not only make shots, but the ones he made and the timing of them, they're back breakers and then go 6-10 from the three. He just hasn't done that, so give him credit and I don't think you can give us a lot of blame on that, a couple of them. Two of them were on kick outs that were after a rebound and one of them was that one in the corner, which God couldn't have made, so I don't have any blame for anybody on those.

On Malik not having any points tonight…
Malik got hurt. When my guy fell down hurt, we just said, hey, let's just keep playing. Their guy fell down hurt, we said, let's blow the whistle we're on the offensive end. I don't understand that, but Malik was hurt. I think he was hurt a lot worse than I thought. He said it after trying to suck it up, but he was not even close to the same guy. I mean, he took that three and missed it by a foot, so shame on me or my training staff for that because I didn't see what happened. I didn't see it, so I didn't know. I didn't think he was the same most of the day, wasn't as consistent as he's been. He's been, maybe, my most consistent player, but he didn't play good after that at all and that created some problems for us to.

On the chemistry of AJ and Tyson being something to turn to more…
There's a lot of one trick wonders and certain teams we can match up with better. Certain teams like Rutgers, they just back their big guards in there, but I thought Tyson did a good job tonight. He's not been one of the guys that hasn't been playing that good, so the consistency again, but they have not practiced much together in practice because we're trying to get Pierre a little more involved and he didn't do a bad job and just nobody could make a shot. I don't know, I mean, it's going to take a lot of film watching this week to figure out how you can go from 22 to 52 points against the same team, so maybe it's something we look at. A lot of guys have been struggling to make shots. Tyson wasn't making a lot of shots either, so will we do that, maybe, but I don't go by the just change for a change and especially if I know those guys are working their tail off to get there. That's what I do.

Junior Forward Julius Marble II

On going up against Kofi Cockburn…
I mean, it's tough. He's a big strong guy and he's coming at you all the time, every time on offense. He's not bothering us as much on defense, but on offense he's going to bring it and he doesn't really stop as much. So, it's a battle all game.

What changed in those last 13 minutes…
We talked during a timeout about how we got we got to bring it, and we just started playing harder, we started executing better and our guards were hitting the shots that they were missing in the first half. They kept getting the easy shots in the mid-range, just getting great looks, and they were going down in the second half. If they went down in the first half, it probably would have been a better outcome, but we got going towards the end because of that.

On the one-on-one player interactions after a loss…
We just got to bounce back, move onto the next game. We can't really dwell on that game too much. We did some good things. We did some bad things. We didn't shoot that well in the first half, let them get easy shots. In the second half, we started to build on it, start to compete, start to have fun, and we just got to build on that and bring it to Iowa.

On the team making progress after a loss…
Yeah, a lot of guys won't admit it right now because we lost, but I feel like we did build on it a little bit because we got to get some type of rhythm going on as the end of the season's approaching. We're going to be in tournament time, where it's one-and-done (if you lose). So, even though we lost, this is a big loss for us as far as learning and progressing in that way.

On Tyson Walker's competitive nature coming out again…
With Tyson, we had talked to him a couple of games ago. I think it was the Indiana game, right before we were telling him 'Hey, you got to have some fun out there'. It didn't seem like he has having fun. It was like 'just play hard, play with passion, have fun'. It doesn't matter if you miss shots, make shots, turn the ball over, getting yelled at by coach, whatever it is, as long as you're just playing hard and having fun. I think he started to build on that. Indiana, there's was like a picture or video of him yelling and having fun, and he's just been having for the last week or two. Going on to today, that's why he had a great game.

Junior Guard Tyson Walker

On what changed for him individually and the team during the team's late run…
We just started playing harder on defense. I started recognizing I had shots in the first half that I wasn't taking off the ball screen, so then I just started taking them and just being more aggressive (in the second half).

On him having more fun in recent games is a conscious thing…
Yeah, especially for me, just getting out of my own head and just starting to play more and doing what I do, play defense, picking people up. That's the fun part for me. Offense is not really the main thing. Frustrating somebody else on defense is what makes me have fun. That's what I've been doing lately, and that's where the fun comes from.

On scoring 18 points in a seven-minute stretch and the mental fortitude it takes…
I didn't even know I had that many points until about like a minute left when I looked up. The shots were just going. I work on those shots down there every day, so just taking them and the confidence is always there. So, there's never a shot that I don't think I can make.

Sophomore Guard A.J. Hoggard
On him and Tyson Walker playing together and the challenges it creates for other teams…
I think so, because Tyson can score the ball. We all know he came from Northeastern where he had a lot of points, and I think I do a good job of getting guys shots. So, with that two-headed monster at the top with teams guarding screens differently, I think it'd be very effective on kind of a smaller night with our shooters. They kind of hugged Gabe [Brown] and Max [Christie] when they were coming off the screens, so we kind of had to take some shots. Depending on how guys guard us in the corner with us going small sometimes with us two out there. It could be a lot of fun for everybody. Shooters get shots, we get shots and it's just fun.

On how to get Max Christie more good shots…
We kind of got to find him when he's open. We've got to get him the ball where he can get a shot off. As we all know, we're watching the game and you guys are watching, guys are draped all over him because they know he can shoot the ball. So, we kind of got to find a better way to get him shots when he is open and not try to have him force his shots because he's not getting them. As a point guard, I've got to do a good job watching film, see where I can get him shots. There's certain things, how people are guarding things and watch the other team ahead of time. I need see how they guard certain things, and just try to talk to Max throughout the week or two-day prep or however many days of prep, and just prepare him to be able to get shots and show him where he's going to get good shots.

On the impact of the Izzone…
It means a lot. You go to a lot of different places, and they have student sections but it's not all the way around the court how ours is. They come in, you see them in the beginning the game or warm-ups, they're racing down to get close to the floor. They do a good job of bringing us energy that we don't have sometimes. If we go on an 0-for-4 missing streak, they kind of bring energy for us on defense, kind of help us will wins. Tonight, they did a good job of that and if we can clean up a couple of mistakes down the stretch, I think they would've helped us will out the win tonight.

Illinois Men's Basketball Head Coach Brad Underwood

Opening Statement...
That went about like I thought it was. Two teams played extremely hard in the first half. I've obviously made reference to the Pizza Hut parking lot yesterday, the fight and the grit. And I thought that's what that took today I'm really proud of my group. I'm really proud of the connectivity, the warrior mentality I thought we had. The first half was about as good defensively as I felt like we've played in a long, long time. This game took on a real similar identity to the first game in Champaign. We came out foul, foul, foul, foul, foul. Got them on the line. It was about a year ago at this time that D'Mitrik Trice at Wisconsin had one of those similar nights that Tyson (Walker) had tonight. We forced hard two's. Those were hard two's other than the hard three he made. He made 'em. Give him credit. I thought we did a great job on Gabe (Brown). I thought we did a really great job on Max (Christie). And we forced two guys who haven't been big scorers for them to try and score the ball to beat us. But you know I say this all the time, Jacob Grandison is a guy that I trust more than anything. He's in the gym at three o'clock the other night after coming back from Rutgers, he and Plummer. It's so often happens, really good things happen when you tackle adversity and you come out on the other side of it. Kofi (Cockburn) was excellent, dominant. He's had two great days of practice. Trent Frazier, I gotta admit it was a broken play. He (Frazier) went too early on the play we had called. He just jumped up and made a play, just mad a shot. Doesn't matter that he's zero for five or zero for six first half, he just makes his shot. Good win for us bouncing back after a lackluster performance at Rutgers. But I'm proud of this group and thought we did a lot of good things today.

On second chance points today – thoughts on offensive glass…
Well I think we've been out-rebounded seven of our last nine or somewhere close to that. I don't know if that's exactly right, but it's enough. I was concerned coming into the game. I mean obviously that is what Michigan State does is rebound. We had to get other guys rebounding beyond Kofi. Too often, we take him for granted because he gets rebounds. I thought tonight our activity was much better. Obviously Jake (Jacob Grandison) had a couple offensive rebounds. Kofi was dominant with five but his energy was terrific tonight.

On challenging players the past couple days – point it resonated….
I felt pretty good about it the first day and then I was harder and more demanding the second. They responded, really challenged them. This group had a lot of fun last year. And they know what it's about, and we needed to get back to that. We needed to develop a little more of a warrior mentality as I call it. Felt pretty good about that though. High character guys in that locker room.

Coleman's (Hawkins) activity and energy in the first half…
He made one mistake, helping off Hauser, which is just about as big of a sin we can have on that end, but his activity, his energy, it's amazing. You know the ball goes in when we have that kind of energy. I like our bench tonight. I'm really trying to find a rotation pattern and I felt pretty good about that tonight and making sure the guys had the right type of minutes. But, Coleman was terrific.

On first win as head coach at Breslin, how much it means…
Yea, this is the best. Our business has been, our business was made great because of guys like Tom (Izzo). To not want to follow a lot of his lead and pattern. We talk a lot. We think a lot alike in terms of the way the game should be played, and the character of the young men. Obviously, he's a Hall of Famer. It was important for me because I hadn't won here, so it's a box checked. It just so happens that it keeps us in first. You guys know I don't worry too much about the standings, it's next game. It felt good to come in here and check a box.

On experience this group has, curious to how they were going to respond about comments on public toughness…
I had an idea. I mean it's not the first time they've heard about me taking someone to the Pizza Hut parking lot, back in the day. But it's just a mentality. And the mentality has got to be, it's February. It's hard, it's tough. Nothing is easy. Staying connected is the biggest part of that and together and learning to fight for who we are and not our individual stuff, but who we are. And so I felt pretty good about that and really challenged them with that. I thought Kofi's leadership, Trent's leadership, Da'Monte's (Williams) leadership really came through today.

On forcing Walker to take tough shots, on motivating guys to keep going even not making the stop…
Yeah, the game didn't stop. Good thing is, we went through it a year ago. In just about the same margin at Wisconsin and he (Trice) had 19 points in two minutes. We couldn't stop him. I didn't want to take Kofi out, you don't have timeouts. You've got to keep Kofi in. We raised him a little bit higher in the ball screens. Then we committed an and one. Other than that, all of his (Walker) shots we jump shots. That was the only and one. We gave him two-point jump shots, I'm pretty happy with that most of the time. You gotta make a lot of them to beat ya.

On trusting Trent (Frazier) all along, what it was like to see him finally break through…
Man, that's what it's all about. Seeing really good things happen to really good people. And I know he is 100 percent in our corner, not his corner. In our corner, and that means winning. He's got his routine and he's been as frustrated, he's down. He missed the layup at Rutgers and literally I thought he was going to cry on the court. That kid wants to win so bad. But it's his passing, it's his shooting. He's an elite shooter. Just needed maybe a little bit of a re-shift with his focus. He was very good on the defensive side as well.

On going with Curbelo down the stretch, sign of trying to slow down Walker and trusting him a bit more..
We all know, I think Dre (Andre Curbelo) has been to 14 practices. All year, I think 14. Yesterday was our 85th practice. So it's not where he's had a bunch of run. But he's stayed after practice, he's getting a lot of work. He made a big floater, plus his ball handling and his ability to make plays down the stretch help us on the other end. He made a great cut, made a great pass to Da'Maonte, got a wide open three and just missed it. Those play making opportunities are just as important. When he gets truly back in the 100% capacity and right, he's been an elite defender as well.

On team's connectivity, hustling. Energy that they have together and toughness piece…
It is the game. We can draw up X's and O'x and get Kofi a basket, that's the truth. The reality of it, it's all about the other stuff. They've got to want to fight and play for each other. That's what I challenged them with. When a guy makes a hard play and someone falls down, doggone, we need to have four other guys sprint over there to pick him up. It just can't be in practice. It's gotta be all the time. We win together, we lose together, we cry together, we laugh together. That's the way it's always been here.

On broken play down the stretch, was it supposed to be a shot for Frazier, what does that translate to…
He went about 13 seconds too early. The play was an option for him and Kofi. He just went early. And then all of a sudden, we've got Jake on the wrong side of the floor, we've still got plenty of time but now all of a sudden everyone's looking at me. Trent just jumps up and shoots it. It's what Trent does. He's so in the moment. The best thing about Trent, is nothing that's happened bothers him. Good or bad. He just plays that play. It's very nice to have a guy like that who is on your team that can go and make a play. He made a lot of really good plays today.

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Players Mentioned

Max Christie

A.J. Hoggard

Julius Marble II

Tyson Walker

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