Post-Game Quotes: Alcorn State
11/19/2023 9:04:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Coach Tom Izzo Â
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Opening Statement…Â
I told my staff at halftime, and Bruce Weber at the end of the game, that having a big lead at halftime is some of a coach's worst nightmares. I wasn't pleased with the way we started the second half, but if I go to the first half, I thought we missed a couple good shots early, but then we started hitting shots. I give Tre Holloman a lot of credit for his first start. I thought he played well. I thought A.J. gave him some good passes. We thought Malik Hall played well; he sprained that ankle again early. It wasn't bad enough to where he couldn't play, but we just didn't want to play him most of the second half because of that. Considering we were without Tyson, it was on a team that we are better than, but there were still some discouraging things. We shot 57% from the field, 52% from the three, and 72% from the line. In the second half, we started missing a couple shots and we took some bad ones. I understand it, but the real concern is the rebounding. We get outrebounded, as they had 16 offensives. You can look at it two ways: my staff said 'well they missed a lot of shots, they have a lot of opportunities for offensive rebounds', but I said 'well we had a lot of opportunities for defensive rebounds'. So, it just depends whichever way you look at it. I want to look at it my way, they can look at it whatever way they want to. My way is the way that matters in the meetings tomorrow, so that's a concern. We got 60 shots up, and only had 9 turnovers. We got to the line 21 times, but not as much in the second half. Because I hate the NET so much, I am going to play some subs at the end, and not just Steven (Izzo). I learned something tonight too. You guys wonder why I love football, I have three walk-ons as we all know. Two of their dads played basketball, and one played football. The two that played basketball came out with injuries. The one that played football is tougher than nails, and he stayed in there. So, I got a little bone to pick with Davis (Smith), and definitely with my son. Can't even get a black eye anymore and stay in the game. We played a lot of those freshmen in the second half. We felt like we needed to get them some more time, and that was part of the issue too, as we didn't play Malik hardly at all. But all in all, I got a lot out of the game that I wanted to get out of it for the most part. When you look, Malik was 2-4, Jaden (Akins) was 5-11 and 3-6, Tre was 6-7 and 5-5, A.J. was 3-7 and 1-3. (Jeremy) Fears, who played awfully well was 5-5. Only Book (Xavier Booker) shot poorly, and I swear every one of those shots for me was a good shot for him. We got to get a lot better by Thursday. Tomorrow's practice should be fun. We will get after it, because they are the most physical and big team that well play all year. They have guys the size of Purdue's guys and more physical. It'll be an interesting game.
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On players getting too confident after win…Â
Well, it better not be cocky, because we are 3-2, and around here that's not cutting it. I hope we got a little more confidence in a couple of them. Tre and AJ and Fears and Mady (Sissoko) all played pretty well. I was a little disappointed in Coop (Carson Cooper). He made some mistakes that bothered us a little bit. We have a lot of things to work on. We did not beat the Lakers. There is reason to feel a little bit good, but not great about how we played.
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On getting freshmen minutes…Â
"I kind of learned from Jim Boeheim and what he told me a long time ago, and he is probably right; there's so many things that have changed with these schedules. One of the things that changed is you used to start out the year with some cupcakes, but a couple years ago, the Big Ten started playing a couple Big Ten games in early December. That just added two more monster games. That makes it hard for the freshmen, their parents, and on us. We need some of that, but now we don't get much of a chance. I mean, now we have Arizona, then Georgia Southern, then Nebraska, then Wisconsin. It's a full plate and then after that we have Baylor. It really changes by adding those two Big Ten games in, but it screws up the maturation of the freshmen. It can do nothing but help. Coen (Carr) and Jeremy got a lot out of it tonight. Book still must learn to play harder and stronger, it will take some time.
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On Tre Holloman's confidence…Â
"I remember this summer, I told you he was one of the most improved players. He's improved his shooting a lot and he has gained some weight. I was really pleased the fact he had 5-6 or 6-7, but he also had 5 assists and had one turnover. He played really well defensively. He will be a big lift for us. We get Tyson back now, we will keep getting him, AJ, Akins, and Tre in there. Wea re getting solid play out of Jeremy, and we are working Coen in at a couple positions.
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On finding defensive identity…Â
"Statistically it was really good, and we even could have been better without the lapse. Give my staff a lot of credit too. Those guys have done a great job with the scouting., We are learning and teaching more about what they are doing. I didn't think there were a lot of open looks either. I was pleased with our offense to a certain extent. We still missed some wide-open shots. Sooner or later, they will start falling. 10-25 is a lot better than 1-20. We are making progress.
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On Tyson Walker's status…Â
According to my trainer, he's had a cold for a couple days and just didn't say anything. So that's 4 or 5 days. He wasn't doing good today; I don't even know why he came to the game. I didn't feel he was contagious. I just told him to get some sleep, because he was really hurting this morning and last night when I met with him. I am confident we will get him back, but at what level I don't know. I'm not a superstitious guy. In the UP, I was taught I don't have to wear a jacket in the winter. Those kinds of things are not because you are cold. I don't know what all that means, I just know I walked around without a coat on most of the time. I don't worry about it. I'm not going to keep everyone in a bubble, that's for sure. He will be alright. To your point, we didn't beat the Lakers.
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On absence of Tyson…Â
I think that's another good point about it. I was having nightmares that no matter how you put it, 23 points is 23 points out of your lineup. I do think this will be a confidence booster. If someone gets in trouble or goes down, that's the beauty of this. We just have a lot of work to do yet, but every day I get more encouraged. I spend a lot of time watching that Tennessee game over the last three days. Maybe you start saying to yourself, 'We are not that good,' but if you watch that game. Watch that game and watch any Elite 8 game we've played in; I guarantee that game was as good and tough and physical as any of those games. If that's the ceiling, it's a good ceiling. You need to give our kids a little credit. When you play that hard and long defensively over five games, that speaks a few volumes for our guys. Usually, offense will dictate defense and we've done a pretty good job about struggling on offense, but still doing well defensively. That's encouraging.
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On Coen Carr and Xavier Booker…Â
"Just trying to think in all the time I've been here and all the great players I've been around from my team and other teams, how in the hell he made that dunk. I mean, I didn't know what to do. I said, 'God, if the coach starts jumping up and down and acting like one of those fans, that's not good. If I just sit there cool and casual, that's not good.' So, that was a tough moment for me. He's blocking shots, he's coming too, you know. Every one of them has a weakness that we've got to get better, but I love the kid because he plays hard. In fact he didn't get on the floor that one time and I did jump on him about it and he just took it, and he jumped me back to say, that was ridiculous. You love to see that in a kid. Booker played better too. I mean, had some open shots, he did some things, he just, the strength and the aggressiveness has to improve, but man, there's not a lot of guys that have his skills either. He threw a couple nice passes. If there's one process I'd like to speed up it's him with his strength and aggressiveness, but big fella takes care of some of that so let me just go along for the ride and keep improving him.
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On A.J. Hoggard and Alcorn State…Â
I thought A.J. went through a stretch there to start the second half that he was really, first half was really good, did some good things, missed some good shots. I think the second half he got sluggish, we kind of told him. He went back in there and had some segments where he looked really good. I think that's growth, I think that's encouraging and I think he made some good passes. He got some nice rebounds, he made the right decisions and the right plays most of the time, A.J. took a step. A lot of guys took a step and that's no insult. I thought that team was very well coached. They ran some good stuff. Landon [Bussie] is a good coach. They've won two championships in a row, you say, 'Well, what league was that?' Let me tell you something. When you know how to win a championship, it doesn't matter if it was at Northern Michigan, Iron Mountain, Michigan, Alcorn State or Michigan State. Winning a championship, to do that you have to play against the same people, that you are. And I give him a lot of credit, my good friend Bruce Weber who did the game on TV tonight, knew him a little bit better because he played with a guy that Bruce coached at Purdue. I said to Bruce, 'You watch his stuff? He runs a lot of good stuff, those inside guys.' I walked into the locker room, I told my staff, I said, 'Somebody better have film, their warmup, because I've never seen a team go so hard and that's a great tribute to the coach. They'll be alright, they'll do well again. Tonight, we caught them, they have been playing pretty good, and I still think that team will win a lot of games in their league.
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On what impressed him the most out of the team with Tyson Walker out…Â
Well, we missed him and we didn't miss him. It's kind of neat that Ty wanted to be there too, I told him that he should go home and you know the trainer kind of agreed that he felt it wasn't anything that was infectious. He wanted to be there with the guys, I think that's a step in the right direction for him. It's such a selfish world where everybody just worries about themselves and when guys worry about other people that's kind of cool. So I think they appreciated that he was there and they appreciated knowing that he would have played dead, but he couldn't do anything. I thought it was good that the guys responded the way that they did. Not only Tre, but Jeremy and A.J.. Nobody felt sorry, everybody was locked in, good shoot-around today, so as you said, we learned something and I think that's a positive.Â
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On Jeremy Fears…Â
"I thought he did very well. I thought he made some great plays, he made some shots, he got layups. I mean, he keeps pressure on people and he has a great knack to get people the ball and he talks to them. I mean, that's the one thing he does better than anybody I've had since maybe (Mateen) Cleaves or (Travis) Walton. He talks to people as he's dribbling. He calls out things, and that's why I think he's going to be such a good leader. You gotta keep working on that shot, but you know I was impressed with him and I was very pleased. I spent a lot of time with the freshmen yesterday after practice and it's frustrating for these guys. As I said it's a new era of COVID, transfers, and upperclassmen. A lot of freshmen aren't playing much. I think that's one of our plusses and one of our minuses. We have to plan. We have to play our freshmen because they're our depth. And yet they're not ready to play, not against 23 and 24-year-olds. It's just the way it is and that's what's changed dramatically, from maybe three, four years ago and we've got to adjust and do what we've got to do and they've got to adjust. We've got to spend more time with them, we have to speed the process up because of them. Â
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On the execution of his plan to push the pace…Â
I am and A.J.'s a big part of that. He pushed it well at Duke. He pushed it pretty well over there and he pushed it well against Butler, so that's a big thing and then Jeremy came in and continued. But what we're starting to get is those wings are starting to run. Jaden had open shots. He ran. Tre ran. We're starting to get some Malik down the middle. So we're getting a variety of different things, which I think is going to benefit us, I'm excited about a few steps forward, but I think we have so far to go is the bad news, and we've got so far to go is the good news because I think we can get a lot better and that's the way I'm going to look at this.
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A message from Tom Izzo…
I'm probably not going to see most of you, so have a good Thanksgiving and make sure you get on that treadmill after that.
Alcorn State Head Coach Landon Bussie
On what went right and what went wrong in the first half...
I think we got two stops in a row that you've got to convert early on, and you can't have two big stops like that early on and not convert. Especially a good basketball team like that, a well-coached team, probably going to be a Final Four team. We've have to have better starts, have to convert. When you get the looks, and we just didn't do that early on, we started off too slow.
On the lack of shots in the first half, creating a hard hole to climb out of...
Oh yeah, I mean especially against a good team like this, they suffocate you defensively. They do a great job of protecting the rim, and they keep you out of the paint, but the biggest thing that killed us tonight was their transition offense. They do a great job of sprinting the floor. Great opportunity to coach against Coach Izzo, to be on the court with him is a blessing.
MSU Freshman Guard Jeremy Fears Jr.
On being a leader on the floor...
One of my best attributes is just talking and being able to help others. I want to help lead and be their coach on the court. Coach can't really play, only thing he can do is talk. I need to translate the message to the guys and make sure we all are on the right page.
On Tyson Walker not playing tonight…
Stepping up. Knowing that it's the next person up and next man up. He's our leading scorer and a big part of our team. This is an opportunity for our other players to step up. Tre Holloman had a good game, and he stepped up. Malik Hall, A.J. Hoggard, and I did a good job of being the next man up. Everyone needs to give a little more.
On Tom Izzo's conversation with the freshmen…
Being closer together and keep working on our weaknesses to try and speed up the process. There's not a lot of freshmen playing right now, and he wanted to let us know he plans on playing us. We gotta be ready, watch more film, come to the gym more, and just continue to do the little things. We need to try and get an advantage because guys that are transfers or 22 and 23 years old have more experience. We got a lot of 18 and 19 year olds, so we are lacking experience. We need to come in and just try and do a little bit more to get a head start.
MSU Freshman Forward Coen CarrÂ
The one dunk, you probably know what i'm talking about… did you finish that, did you kind of end of throwing it in...
I was just running my lane like I usually do, and I was open, and I got the ball. He jumped before me but he kind of went down I stayed up and I just threw it in. And he fouled me yeah.Â
On if that was one of his better dunks...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's up there because usually people don't really jump with me, so I don't really get a lot of chances to dunk on people, so yeah, it's up there.Â
On the importance of getting the younger players more playing time...
It was real good you know, I feel like a lot of guys got their confidence up this game, there's going to be players on the next. So yeah, It's a real good confidence game for us.Â
What needs to happen to get the breaks going like you did tonight...Â
Get stops, get rebounds, get turnovers, get steals. That's really what needs to happen to get the break, you know that's what we're known for, so we just need to get to doing that more and playing better defense, defense brings offense.Â
MSU Sophomore Guard Trey Hollomon
Your first miss was from inside the arc. Did you start thinking 'okay I need to start shooting outside or no I need to make inside there' or just take what you get?
I mean I take what I can get. Whatever the defense gives me, if its driving, if its shooting, if its passing then I just need to read them.
How was it to have a game without Tyson (Walker)...
You know it felt good just to score the ball, but Tyson is a great player. We are going to need him whenever he feels better, and I just need to keep on doing what I'm doing.
On the importance of the team, knowing they can count on you...
 I had a great summer and I feel that. But, just staying ready; I know that I can do it, and my team notices it, and so do the coaches.
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