Post-Game Quotes: Maryland

Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo

Opening statement…
I thought my good friend George Blaha said it best. He said, 'Man, this is the first game I have been able to come to. And I saw an entire season in one game, ups and downs.' But I am going to tell you now, I have been saying about Maryland and about Rutgers and about some of these teams you do not respect, and you saw some pretty good players today. We did a helluva job early. We did what we do. We let down a little bit. All of a sudden, the gaps got bigger, and then they started driving us and then started kicking out. And [Eric] Ayala came up to me before the second half started, and he was wiping his feet on the mat in order to go in. And he looks at me. He goes, 'Coach, I'm trying to figure this out.' I said, 'Well, don't.' And then he hit three threes in a row and I said to him after the game, 'Dammit, you figured it out.' And helluva performance by him. We did do a pretty good job on [Fatts] Russell. A hell of a player. Dante Scott, I think, defensively we were better than most of the game and that was the difference. We shot pretty well. We out-rebounded them and we guarded them. And that's what we haven't been doing in the last five games. We haven't been guarding anybody and so we did. As they say, defense wins games, championships, whatever. I mean, you got to be able to guard somebody and you got to take care of the ball. I got two of my good buddies from the NFL here, and I say every time I asked [Steve] Mariucci who's going to win the Super Bowl, it's either the team with the most guys left standing or least turnovers. And I always told my team that doesn't change, doesn't matter what sport it is. And when you have some of those turnovers for touchdowns like we had, I felt bad for Max [Christie]. I mean, he's probably one of my hardest working guys. And I mean, I never saw the ball go through his hands and things that happened. But we'll grow from it. We'll learn from it, and it's always easier to learn after a win. And that's what we'll do.

Using this win as momentum for the B1G tournament…
Well, it kinds of puts you back in the human race. And I think it's very important. We just haven't been able to put together some games, so now the trick will be, can we put together a couple of practices? Can we clean up maybe some of those spots, we were 20 up, all of sudden we were 10 up, then we were 18 up, and all of a sudden, we're 8 up. And we're 15 up and then all of a sudden, we were only three up. You know those spots and they happen quickly. And so, all we can do is show them that film, show why we think it happened, and hopefully get a little better from there. That's what we'll try to do. But the momentum? I don't know. I said the one thing I do like about this team is, we've done it before. We've guarded before, we've shot 85% from the free throw line when I say before, I mean over 20 games and what we hadn't done is taking care of the ball and now we're starting to do that on a much better pace. But I just believe that if we could realize that we've done these things before, we don't have to reinvent the wheel, I don't have to shoot 80 percent from the line when we have been shooting 50. I don't have to shoot 38 pecent from the three when we shoot 25. We've been there, it's been there consistently that we have to improve on it because that's my job.

On the senior class…
You know, I was really impressed with Marcus [Bingham Jr.] tonight. We did go to him early, but I was more impressed in the huddles than I was with his play. He matured; he will does to win. Gabe [Brown], I think, had his moments when that senior stuff you talk about where you are so excited. And then he settled down and made some big shots and big plays during that one stretch. And Joey [Hauser] was solid as a rock. I mean, he made some passes and got some rebounds. I don't know how many rebounds he ended up with, but it says five. It seemed like he was getting a lot of rebounds. But he had five assists; for a guy like him, that's a lot. So, I thought all three of them played well and I thought Mike [Peterson]'s cameo was the best. He didn't make a turnover. He didn't miss a shot. He didn't miss a free throw. So that was really good on Mike's part. And Mike has been a Division II guy. We all love Division II guys, and he has been really good for my basketball team. Don't underestimate the value that kid has brought to us this year. He won a National Championship in Division II, and any time in order to win something, you're in a special place for me.

His appreciation for this team…
Yeah, we went three years in a row where on senior night we raised a banner. So, you've got to be a little disappointed if you're not raising a banner and yet, there's a lot of people don't raise any banners, so what I'm appreciative of as I've said it all along and everybody's gone through it, but everybody handles it differently. This last couple of years has been amazing. And, I got a call from John Calipari today, and he talked about how our job is still to push kids, and even though the surroundings make you kind of question it, how much can kids take now with all the stuff they're going through? I kind of told my guys that story, and I said, you know, we got to throw it out the window. I think I had to do a better job too, as I always said, it's not one person's fault. It's not just the players, not assistant coaches, not the coach. It's everybody's. Everybody has got part of the wins, like the 663. I told you I didn't win one of them alone, and everybody's been part of the losses. We got to figure out how to make sure we don't do the things we did to make those losses happen on a regular basis like they were. I mean there's teams that are better than us right now. But I don't think there's anybody we can't beat either. Unfortunately. I don't think there's many teams that can't beat us, but I think that seems to be something all around the country.

On what it means passing Bob Knight…
You know it's almost humiliating now, a little embarrassing, cause you know I idolized Bob Knight when I got here. He was my hero. John Wooden for some, I was not quite, I didn't know enough about him, so it was Bob Knight you know, and what he stands for, what he did. And how he treated me. It was my first Big Ten victory, against Indiana, and he treated me the same then as he did when we beat him the year we went to the Final Four. And he gave me some great advice then. He told me how to handle the media. Kind of an oxymoron there, I guess, but I mean he did tell me how to handle the media, and the road, and you know, to get to a national championship because he felt their team was good enough. And I'll always remember that way more than the number of wins because the number of wins, they go by, who knows how the competition was then compared to now, and all those things, but records are made to be broken, and if I'm in the same sentence with Bobby Knight, Gene Keady for Tom Izzo, that's that's a hell of a place to be.

On the adversity the seniors have faced, going to a Final Four and First Four…
That's a hell of an intelligent question right there, they have been. You know, the First Four experience wasn't great, but we have been through a lot. They've won, they've won a couple of championships. They've, you know, got into a Final Four, as you said. And then they've been through the pandemic. And let's not forget that, you know, that was hard on some of them. I told you with Joey, I mean, how that year was a disaster in a lot of ways and not all his fault, just the way, you know, he was built to handle it. So I think we all learned a lot. But you know what I learned in the end? There's only one way to be great. You still gotta push people, still gotta demand of people, you're still gotta make people feel uncomfortable. And what I always tell them, and my favorite thing is, my job is to make you do things that you don't even believe you can do. And that's not always fun, but I think it's the only way you become ultra successful. And sometimes in this last year and a half, I'm not sure I did as good job of that. So, you know, they're going to get better, I'm going to get better, and we're going to get better. How's that?

On Malik Hall's improvement from last game to today…
You should ask him. There were a lot of conversations, a lot of phone calls, texts, and one early morning meeting. And you know, the other thing I try to tell guys is, I'm not stupid, at least most of the time, and I think that if I am pushing somebody I know he's got a lot to give. I'm not trying to get Steven [Izzo] to score 30 points, you know. I'm just trying to, I have a lot of respect, a lot of admiration and a lot of confidence in Malik Hall. I think sometimes he doesn't have that. And so if I just let it go, you're going to be average. And if I don't, he's going to be mad at me. So, it's a tough thing to deal with, especially during the pandemic. But I learned something in these last three weeks too. I mean, this doesn't, players learned, coaches learned too, and I'm going to be a better coach for it.

On the end of Marcus Bingham Jr's career at Michigan State…
I was proud of Marcus tonight, and I did say that I was proud of him, because you know, as I've told you, we negotiated. You know, it's a negotiation now. It's not a dictatorship like it used to be. It's a negotiation, and we negotiated inside out threes, and he hit a couple of big ones. We did negotiate time and situations. That one on the left wing was a little part of that, but I said "you rebound and you can do this." You know that's part of the negotiation. Guy had 11 rebounds, I was proudest of him, if you would have heard the huddle. Huddles are interesting things now that Draymond's [Green] is gone. You know, they're not R-rated, they're crazy, but they're good. And when Marcus was kind of, begging people. Willing people. I never saw that side of him. And so, some players grow in a lot of different ways. Marcus Bingham grew, that winning has become more important than individual play and that's a hell of a thing to take with him for the next 60 years. I'm so proud of him. I really am. I'm happy for him and, you know, next year when he's somewhere and I'll still be calling him and telling him that he's gotta keep lifting weights and get stronger and eat better. And it's not going to change, but you know what, the thing I'm really proud of. Marcus has three classes left to graduate. And I think you'll be the first in his family. And that's been a fist fight. And I asked him the other day "you know what if I had gave into you? Would you have gotten it done?" He started to say yes and I took a baseball bat out of my closet and said "don't do it". And he laughed and he said "no, probably not". And that's kind of the, that's the way you gotta deal with people nowadays. And he's going to be a better player, and I don't think he's done. I think this could give him a shot in the arm, because he rebounded. I mean, yeah, he hit a couple of threes. So for Marcus, that's utopia. You know, for the coaches, 11 rebounds, and what he did there is utopia. Played pretty good defense, I thought that was great.

On playing Maryland in the first game of the Big Ten Tournament…
Probably the assistants that have to scout it are feeling a little better. I'm not sure it's an advantage. You know, now you gotta beat a team three times, but it is what it is. You know, we beat Wisconsin four times to win the National Championship. I mean, it is what it is. And would you hope to play somebody else? Maybe. But I don't care. I'm just glad we're playing with a little better feel. We know 'em. Maybe we won't let [Eric] Ayala shoot the ball this time. But I'm not sure we'll get off to an 18-1 start like we did either, so that was pretty cool. But all in all, you're right, I feel like this team is good enough and we're going to find out in the next three days where they want to take it, because we can clean up those mistakes. I mean, there were some crazy mistakes. We can clean those up. We can get back to, you know, we're still shooting the ball well. And what did we shoot from the line? 76%, that's pretty good. I mean. So all those things we did well, our defense, we did well. And now we just got to put them together and try to do it for 40 minutes instead of 30, 35, 25, whatever.

Maryland Head Coach Danny Manning

Opening statement...
It's always a tall task to come in here on Senior Night and compete up against a very talented team.  I'm very happy with parts of the game in terms of, you know, showing some toughness and grit and fighting back and cutting it to three after we were down at least 18 to one at one point. We have to make sure we don't put ourselves in that situation moving forward. That's just too big of a hole to overcome. We outscored them by 10 in the second half, but we were down 20 in the first, so we can give them credit. They came out to play. For us we have to pull the good from this game and have a short memory and get prepared to go on the run once we get to Indy.

The message at halftime in the locker room...
The message was, we have to do a better job of winning the fight. They came out and they made some threes. [Marcus] Bingham a hit couple, three 3s. He banked all of them in, but that happens after you make one or two of them. Their team was too high of a clip for our liking. We weren't disruptive enough. That was the first thing that we talked about is, let's make sure we give ourselves a chance, by bringing the fight. You know, that's one thing that we're proud of as a staff is that these guys have continued to show grit and determination regardless of situations, for the most part. And there was a challenge, and those guys came out and answered that- to a certain extent, obviously not enough for us to get the win.

Creating opportunities in the second half...
We had opportunities. We were one of 15, I think, from the three point line. A couple of those … we probably should have tried to drive the ball a little bit more. But it's also a fine line when you're playing on the road. Sometimes that is the best shot that you can get on the drive if there is some contact. As you know, there weren't many calls [fouls], I thought they just let the teams play, in the first half.

On Fatts Russell's performance...
He's a young man that's scored over 2,000 points in his career. He's had quite a few steals. I don't know the exact number. But defensively, he always does a good job of trying to pressure the basketball and be disruptive to their offensive flow. And he was really active, had great anticipation, great timing and got his hands on some balls and got out in transition and gave us a chance to do some things to cut into that lead.

How the team's defense brought them out of the deficit...
I thought the guys just played with more grit, more toughness, more determination to find a way to come up with some stops and be a lot more disruptive than we were in the first half. Deflections, steals, we got a chance to get out in transition and score the basketball, which is always something you want to do against a team that is so good defensively, like Michigan State- scoring in the open court before the defense even gets set. And those deflections and steals gave us that opportunity.

The advantages and disadvantages of having to play MSU again in the Big Ten Tournament...
I'm looking forward to it. You know, you play a team three times, that's you get a good feel for them. Not a lot of prep in regards to showing a lot of film, because we've been doing that all week, so, you know, we'll go back and we'll break down this game and we'll see what new sets that they ran. We'll talk about not putting ourselves in a hole. We'll talk about the things that we did well, that gave us a chance to get back into the ball game. And the biggest thing for us is knowing that where we were in the first half, we do get down to three [points behind], and we have to do a better job when we get a couple of stops of getting that rebound and not giving up offensive rebound after offensive rebound and let them turn it into a three pointer.

Redshirt Senior Forward Joey Hauser

On getting the win gaining a sort of confidence when a game gets close…
First half, they weren't making many shots and they had some decent looks, so we knew they were going to make some shots in the second half. When they kind of went on those runs there, I think two times they even cut it within ten points. It was just good to see our team kind of fight through that. We knew they were going to make their run and we did fight back and our season, we've had a lot of runs here and there from each team and each game, so this one just felt good to kind of finally get it done."

On starting the game with the other seniors…
Well, this is something that happened, I think has happened a couple of years here, some seniors are going to start, but we had a couple of early plays ran for Marcus [Bingham Jr.], that first lob was a good play that we ran and we practiced on. A couple of plays set up for Gabe [Brown] to get some shots too, so right away shots were just falling down, a lot of it was just our excitement and our energy for being senior day, and that's kind of how things went.

On Marcus Bingham Jr. being a vocal leader and a valuable player…
He's a senior, so he's going to have a large impact. He's been here four years, been here as long as anyone with Gabe, so he's been through it all and defensively, obviously, he covers up a lot for us. He's the leading shot blocker in MSU history, so something to be said there, but he's able to stretch the floor for us as a five man, make some threes and get down low and get some rebounds and score down low, so there's a lot of things that he can do. You don't see many five men move the way he does as well, so he did a lot for us tonight.

On what this game means going forward…
I mean, it's been pretty rough up and down stretch here. We lost four or five in a row and then we win one and we lose two in a row on the road, so I think we have to see that team again if I'm not mistaken to play Maryland again. It's tough to beat a team three times, but that's what we're going to have to do and just going forward, it's a whole new season, it's one and done time. I think this kind of a fresh start could be good for us, especially coming off this big win.

Senior Forward Gabe Brown

Thoughts on senior night…
It was everything I thought it would be. I mean, it was emotional because it was the last time I'll ever play in the Breslin with my guys, so it was emotional, but I mean we come out with a win so that was the most important part of it all. That's all I wanted to do, was get a win.

On what this game means going forward…
It's going to be very important. It's one and done time, so we can't have any mistakes. We had 14 turnovers, we can't have that. We got to cut that down. We got to start playing better defense. Offense is kind of slow and still at times, so we got to correct that, but we come out with the win, so that's good.

On Malik Hall's play and how coach wants him to be more consistent like he played…
Malik comes in everyday to work and I'm just proud of him just to see the ball go in for him because he had a little tough stretch and was struggling as well. When he did that move though it was impressive, so I had to get hype. We are going to need him for many more moments like that again, so I'm just happy that he got it done today."

What it's going to take make a run in the tournament….
We just got to stay locked in. Guys got to buy all the way in. It's one and done time and I'm not one person that wants to go home early. I went home early last year and I'm not going home early this year, so everybody has to lock in and get the job done.

Senior forward Marcus Bingham Jr.

So what was today like, given all that you've been through...
It was crazy. You know when you're in a situation like this, you know, you think back on when you first came and then all the emotions and all the moments and stuff, throughout the years. And then it just it all ties in back to, a night like this. You know, I've seen a lot of people crying. I almost shed a couple tears myself, but I held it in, you know, I didn't wanna have that sad face, but you know I appreciate this place and I appreciate my coaches, everybody that came through here that helped me ever, you know, and this is the place to be, man. And I'm happy I came here.

On Malik's second-half play...
Malik is a, you know, he's kind of like, he's a mellow dude man. He's really straight, like, really narrow. He's not too up, too down. So even when he's having stretches like he had the last couple of games, he's just kind of like the same. Even if he has a night like tonight, kind of the same. So all I can really tell him is, you know, I got his back. And if you need anything he can ask me, or even in the moments, you know, during games and stuff like that, my job, you know as a teammate and upperclassmen, is to cheer, cheer him on and get him out of whatever type of headspace he's in.

On making first-half threes..
It felt good, you know, and when that first one went in, I knew the second one was going up. Then, when I caught the third one, it was kind of like, I'm shooting this one. That's what it was, and then it went in, and I wished all the other ones would've went in, but you know we had fun tonight. I got to see family I haven't seen in a long time and my family got to come on a night like this. So, you know, I just really cherish it all there.

Players Mentioned

Marcus Bingham Jr.

Gabe Brown

Malik Hall

Joey Hauser

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