Post-Game Quotes: Maryland

Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo

Opening Statement…
I told you that this was going to be a big game. That's a very good team, a very well-coached team. The hell with starts. Don't ever tell me about starts. Don't ever tell me about middles. There's only one thing that matters in this game. Did you finish the job? Period. We've been up 11, we've been up 15-0. I felt better about the start just sitting there watching. It's better when you see the ball go through the hole. You know, we still have our stretches. I thought that second-half stretch was disgusting. But, I thought that most of the game we played damn good. Our defense was so good until we got a little tired and got back-cut a couple of times. I thought we did a good job on most of their best players. To be honest, (Jahmir) Young is a load. He got his 17, but he had to earn them. I thought (Joey) Hauser played well and Tyson Walker, he got those two fouls and that really hurt us. And no, I was not going to put him back in. He was guarding their best player, and if I put him on one of the other guys, all they did was back him in. We were stuck on that. And yet, A.J. (Hoggard's) free throws were big, but I thought his 10 rebounds were bigger than his free throws. When A.J. has games with eight assists and two turnovers, we seem better than when he has 15 points. That's what we're trying to get through to him. Jaden (Akins) played really well early, and then he struggled a little bit in the second half, but he did hit a three late. I thought Mady (Sissoko) and Jaxon (Kohler) did a hell of a job on those ball screens up there, and they deserve a lot of credit. So, big win for us. It's been a grind, and I think you would all agree. I'll tell you this now, these are the things that we talked about in practice the other day. Malik (Hall) practiced a few minutes and then twisted his foot, and did not practice. The offense, he seems out of sync, because he's never able to practice yet. And yet, he's healthy. It just happens. It's happened three times now. If we get him healthy, I still think that this team is good enough to make some runs. I really do. You see we can shoot it better. Just a couple of stretches. We're going to have to really look at the film and convince our guys that those stretches were a couple of bad shots or a couple of quick shots that led to breakaways. In that one stretch, they got three 3-point plays. Two or three the old fashioned way. We held their team to 39%, 13% from three. We shot 44% and 45%, respectively. We only had 10 turnovers. You would hope to win by a little bit more, but that tells you how good of a team that they are. They're a very good team, and they're really well-coached."

On the final moments of the game…
We were stuck there. We got the rebound, and we fouled him on purpose because he was a 40% free throw shooter. Only this year, he looks like he might make both of them. We got the rebound back, and we were out of timeouts. That was the problem. He (A.J. Hoggard) almost got caught, and that was a really heady play by him to throw it up. But, those 10 rebounds he had were a big part, and those two free throws weren't too bad either, especially for a guy that in his first two years here barely made one out of two. To go from that to having two perfect swishes, I was pleased with that. I thought Walker had a stretch there when we really needed him. That reverse layup looked easy. That was not easy. That shot when he was stuck between some size and he still managed to get it off. A.J. played more like the way a point guard should play. He got guys shots, and Hauser hit them. You could say that Hauser hit the shots, but he hit them because they came off of great passes.

On managing to win a game against a strong opponent with just two offensive rebounds…
We were disappointed in that too, at halftime. Granted they didn't have a lot either, they only had five. But, against a hot team that's playing really well. They had a one-point game against Purdue, and then they won four in a row. I thought that this could be a turning point in the season kind of game. It's hard to say that, because there are still six or seven games left on the schedule. So, there's a lot of basketball left to play, and we had to make a move somewhere. This put us in a position to feel a little better about ourselves now. We actually have an extra day to practice. Hopefully we can get Malik (Hall), I feel so sorry for him. He had such a good summer, but it really has been a grind for him. He's hanging in there and fighting through it.

On being able to close out the game…
We've had a couple of games now where we've led for 30 minutes. Gonzaga, we led for 30 minutes. Illinois, we led for a lot of that game. When you do that, and you find a way to lose. Most of the finding a way to lose came because we were playing some good people then and fatigue was a factor. All those things. But there was a different look in their eye in this game. We told them if they don't like pressure, they shouldn't show up. That's what we told them the day before. You don't like to do that very often, but there comes a point in time where that's what you have to do. That says a lot about our guys. Our staff did a good job. We ran some good things, and we tried to get Tyson (Walker) the ball. I would like to say this, because they get no credit: Mady (Sissoko) and Jaxon Kohler, really did a good job. We did play small a little bit, but Mady and Jaxon did a great job on those ball screens up there, because they flip them, and that's really difficult. Especially when you're covering (Jahmir) Young. I thought those two guys were dynamite.

On playing against Maryland's press…
We had some different lineups in there, and for a team that presses, I thought we did a great job against that. We changed their press-break offense a little bit. I thought we did a very good job on that. I'm not sure that we turned the ball over on the press itself, maybe once. Listen guys, we're not good enough to play with our two leading scorers on the bench. Then we had A.J. on the bench for a while. We're just not that good. Nobody really is anymore. They're playing seven guys too.

On getting Julian Reese in foul trouble…
The problem is, Patrick Emilien came in and I thought played his tail off. He gets six rebounds and he was more active. I don't know. I don't remember exactly what the score was when he (Reese) went out. I thought Mady (Sissoko) did a lot of good things for a guy that had one basket, two free throws and five rebounds. He did his job. He is a significant reason why we won the game.

On A.J. Hoggard taking the free throws at the end of the game…
Put it this way: a year ago, I would've had him inbounding the ball. Now, he's a guy I want to have the ball. He's earned that. And that's what people don't understand. You earn the right. It's not given to you. You earn it by shooting a bazillion free throws – which he has. Every game we shoot 15 minutes of free throws. They shoot about a hundred of them. We chart every single one of them. I don't think he's been below 90 one time.

Michigan State senior guard Tyson Walker

On the overall improvement from the start of the season to now...
We just got back to being more aggressive with everything, shooting the ball, guarding better, really trying to hold them down. I feel like he (Tom Izzo) can trust me to play the games and fight through. That's the biggest thing that we have.

On getting the lead back after timeouts from Maryland...
That was really big, because they had taken the momentum back. So, it helped us. Especially when the crowd was into it, it really helps us on defense, and it helps us when we are playing.

On the transition game of the team...
You can't run unless you get a stop so we had to get those stops in.

On what it was like to be down four and getting some shots up...
We just really work on attacking. It has been a couple games in a row that we just worked on attacking and getting rebounds.

On the mood of the team when they were up by four...
We were pretty good. We know that we have given up leads before, so we just try and ride together, stick together.

Michigan State junior guard A.J. Hoggard

On the last stretch of the game with all the free-throws and then eventual final play…
Just had a chance to redeem myself from a couple games that I missed two late, that came down to the Iowa game, the Purdue game at home. So, I had a chance to redeem myself. Went to the line, knocked them down. And, they missed a free throw…You know my freshman year coach talked about free-throw line cutouts, and lost a few games like that. So that was in the back of my mind, and I kind of just had to go get the ball. Just trying to get away from those fouls and let the time run off, and Malik (Hall) streaked down the court, and I seen him and made a pass. He made a great catch coming back to the ball and meeting it. Jaden got a dunk, and we went from there.

On how he was able to spot Malik Hall down the court on the last play of the game…
Yeah, I saw the double coming for sure. They were in scramble mode, and they just missed a foul shot, and they were pressing the whole game. They were in scramble mode at least trying to foul, if not get a steal. I know that they were going to be up like that, and their five-man was the one who missed the foul shot. So, he was up and just got him to commit the double and Malik did what he was supposed to do, run down the middle of the floor and he streaked and he was wide open.

On his ability to get other guys the ball in the right spots, as well as limiting the turnovers…
Yeah, it's definitely more smooth when our shooters make the shots how they are capable of. I think we were just dialed in tonight. Like I told you guys last time, we're not going to have that slump, like we had shooting-wise last game against Rutgers. So, I trust my shooters, and they came through and made shots that lead to me getting assists in the stat-sheet. So I give them the credit for knocking down those shots, and I just find them where they need to be found at. And they just came through and knocked them down.

On responding to Coach Izzo's request to play desperate…
I think they definitely mentioned it a lot. We talked about it, and we know what's on the line. We're not slow to it, and I think our veteran guys did a good job of continuing to run with that message. We needed to play desperately, we needed to win tonight, just like we needed to win at the garden the other night and we didn't get it. So, we needed to win tonight. We're trying to get things rolling, get the ball rolling, and get back on a winning-streak. Get back in the winning column at least, and take off from here and just continue to grow.

On if this game can be a turning point for the team…
Yeah, most definitely. Standings are really similar for all teams. A lot of teams are like from 3 to 9, or whatever it is. So this is just a chance for us to separate ourselves and grow leading up to March. Just get the ball rolling, and get in the right spot. To continue to grow and get ready for March and get ready for the tournament time. We're not looking ahead to any games though, we know what's at stake. We want to be one of those teams playing in March, late in March. So, we have to do what we do now to make that happen.

Maryland Head Coach Kevin Willard

On the final eight minutes of the game…
I thought we had some good looks at the rim and some open looks in general. I have to give them credit for their physicality. They really started bodying us and bumping us on drives. I thought we had two good looks at the rim that didn't get called. They also did a great job in transition.

On Maryland starting the game down 15-0…
The start is my fault. This is our fifth day on the road. We practiced terribly yesterday. The travel is hurting us and making us do things we normally don't do. I thought our practice yesterday was a result of how we started.

On Maryland's defensive effort…
I thought our defensive effort was pretty good all night, I just thought we did some stupid things. We left Joey Houser, who you can't leave, open three times. All three of his threes we open. We had matched up pretty well and we just left him. He's a bad guy to leave. I thought our defensive intensity was pretty good all night. Even when we got down fifteen to nothing, I thought defensively we were okay, but on offense we were just lethargic.

On the abundance of threes shot tonight by Maryland…
I thought they did a really good job of trapping the post. I also thought we took four really bad shots in transition that led to some of their early buckets. That is something we hadn't been doing but being on the road sometimes in a very tough environment, you may get sucked into that.

On the shooting struggles and both teams' runs…
I thought the story of the game was that six man stretch. We got up four. I think Houser hit a three, then we came down and got a good drive and a foul call. Obviously, I think Tyson Walker is playing as good as any guard in the league. He made a big three in transition. I thought that during that stretch we gave them a couple of shots and made them, while we missed a couple of shots.

On MSU late game run without Julian Reese on the floor…
Especially when I went back and looked at it, it was a tough call. We need him out there and he's very valuable on the defensive side and offensive side. We run so much stuff through him, and him not being out there hurt us.

On the number of threes his team is shooting per game…
I think each game dictates it. I think this game they did a really good job of doubling the post. I thoguth we got some good looks. In the second half, our first five looks were all good looks. Our last three were rushed, so taking those away we only shot about twenty. We've been averaging around seventeen through the last four games. Credit to their defense, but some of those are bad shots.

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Players Mentioned

Malik Hall

A.J. Hoggard

Jaxon Kohler

Tyson Walker

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