Post-Game Quotes: Samford

Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo

Opening statement…
Oh, wow, those of you that I did talk to, a few of you, I didn't lie to you. That game was everything I thought I would be and a little bit more.  I felt that the end that it was an incredible team win. I mean, everybody got a rebound. I think, except Kur.  I was mad at him for not getting one in nine seconds, but we had different heroes that, and our crowd was one of them. A hard 8 o'clock game against a team like that, I thought our crowd when Coen (Carr) made a couple of those plays, really got us back in it too. But as I look at this thing, we struggle, you know, Jeremy (Fears) struggled early. He's still not where he's gonna be and it's just gonna take a little more time. I didn't think our bigs played as good tonight as they played, yet they all made some big plays at certain times. I thought Jaden Akins, after a rocky start, played very well and made some big plays. I mean, how do you go from a 25-point swing in seven minutes?  I mean, that's encouraging, I guess. Tre Holloman did a lot of really good things and yet shot it terribly, but nine assists, he had five turnovers and that was a problem, but he did defend pretty well. Carson Cooper, you know, Coop was, I thought their big guys played well, and usually Coop's as good a defender as we have, but probably other than Jaden, the stars of the game for me were Xavier Booker. Ten minutes, he made that big three, he made the tip in, and then he came back with that rolling hook, and so you know, he's gonna play more and more and more, but it is hard when we're playing small, and we were getting driven and we had to get, we had to get Coen and play him at the four a lot.  That was the only reason, and that we'll start playing guys of regular size again. It's been hard with some of these preseason games. And I thought Jase Richardson was phenomenal.  He just looked comfortable to me and it's gonna take me a little time to understand him. It's gonna take him a little time to understand things, but he's very smooth and very … doesn't panic and did a hell of a job. We played some guys too many minutes, meaning a game like that and Jaden, gets 28, and I told him and I'll tell you that technical is so unlike him, but it cost us a lot because it stopped the run and then it got his third or fourth foul.  So, you know, there's different reasons that… why you don't want guys doing that and probably of all the guys on my team and I told the ref, you know, did he really say that much that you T him? No warning? No nothing? I was a little disappointed in that because I know the kid.  So start out 3 for 15 and have 7 turnovers in the first 12 minutes and then go 12 for 16 and have zero turnovers the rest of the half. It was the difference in the game. And in the second half we still got a little sloppy and we didn't guard the drive as well.  We started to become too worried about the 3's. And I thought…give them credit. I mean, they're well coached.  It's a good team. They play hard as hell. They got good players.  This was a game that probably meant nothing to most of our fans or you, but I told you, it meant a lot to me because I knew it was such a difficult prep, and I give my assistants a lot of credit, it was such a difficult prep. I mean, they press you nine different ways, and to do that in two days, I thought was a great job on our part, but give them credit, that's going to be a good team, a really good team, really well coached, really good players.

On Jase's injury…
I don't have an update on… I'm not a doctor, but it's not…it doesn't seem, it seems to be a sprain. But knowing the way the world is, I'm sure we'll, they'll X-ray it and MRI it, and you know, they'll go through it. But he told me, I told him he could take a day off, but not two, and he said that's fine with him.  So, I mean, it was significant, it looked like sprained, but he was happy in the locker room, so I think he's going to be okay. I just don't know how long he'll be out. He's gonna miss a few days, there's no question about that.

How quickly do games like this produce long-term results on the court…
I think he'll get it more than I will, I really do, and, you know, Martin Newton's the AD there and a very good friend of mine from Nike from 30 years ago when I started. And, I think they've done a hell of a job and I think this will help them, but it'll help us too. You don't run into many teams that press on makes and misses and this and that and they do… you don't find many teams. We were actually disappointed in the field goal percent-, 60% in the second half is disgusting, but um we did hold them down on their 3's decently. They made 9, but they got those couple 8. They had 19 turnovers.  I think we did a decent job on that. We had 14, which was disappointing, but when you have 7 in the first couple minutes, it's probably not, but I think we'll reap the benefits quickly. I know Colorado next thing we play presses, so we'll get, this game will help us.  I hate to admit it, but you play these games and everybody just wants the Kansas games what we tried to do this year, and we got a couple more coming up, I never was happy with our ranking at the end because I always thought we played a tough schedule and you played three or four teams that you have to play somebody at home, and so we said we got to upgrade a little bit in in the the mid-major deal. This was a hell of an upgrade. I give them a lot of credit.  I think they're gonna be really good.

On step back attempts and shot clock violations…
There were a couple but there were some open looks. I mean which did you say there were open looks but there were a couple of bad ones…  Okay, that's fair. I did think we took a couple of bad ones, but I thought we took a lot of good ones early. I would have taken every one of those and they just didn't go in.  And I didn't put my hands up. I just did this, I'm a Catholic.  I just put them up, for God's sake, you know, you gotta make one, but once we hit one, Jaden, I think Book hit- did Book hit the first one? I can't tell you how big that was, you know? I'm not trying to make him feel better,  I think this will be a big step for Book, I really do. And he'll get, his minutes will go up,  I guarantee you that.

On the team facing pressure against difficult play…
Well, it is, and you know, the problem with it is, players are hearing from everybody, I don't even know what we were favored.  I mean, now everything's about gambling, not what… were we favored or no? You know, so when those things happen, these kids, I don't know if they did or didn't respect them.  We worked so hard on that press for two days and the zone stuff, I mean, a lot of things we haven't seen at all, and we saw them all tonight. So, I don't blame the guys for that. It's just part of the way it is right now, and play some of these teams that are really, really good.  I mean, they're as good of a team, I think Bowling Green is a good team. Now, I don't know if they can shoot like they did early, but they were good that day, and we just got to get a little better with someone, a couple of guys, got to get better and I think we'll grow. I mean, we are close to where we are.  You gotta remember, Jeremy's really a freshman yet, you know? Jase is a freshman yet, you know? We have some guys that have taken different roles, you know? It's taken a while for Jaden to realize he's the first option, not the third option.  It's funny because I talked to (Tyson) Walker today and he had 35 in a game the other night and he said, "Coach, remember my first year," you know, "remember my first couple games," he was terrible, who did we- in the uh champions that year he wasn't very good, you know, and so I think there's some truth to that, so I'm just happy that all of our players contributed something tonight.

On the improvements of mid-major teams…
Well, there's a lot of improvements and I think one of the reasons is the transfer portal. Everybody talks about the players that are being taken from those teams, which there are, but then there's players that are at big schools that think they're going to Duke or Kentucky and that doesn't happen and then that's where they land. So, there's been a couple of pretty good players. That little guard at Bowling Green was really good and a couple of these kids were pretty damn good. So, I don't know what it's going to do. It's going to be a plus or minus down the road, but right now, I'm just happy that we got to win. Shooting it a little better. Had some adversity, and a completely different system. Zone, 1-3-1, 2-3, press, pressing after baskets. Just amazing. And not many teams that will we ever play that play that many different kinds of coverages, even in their ball screen coverage. And so again, my assistants did a hell of a job, and the players picked it up.

On the team's successful free throw shooting…
I don't know, that's illegal for us though. There's been years where teams have made more than we've shot. And I think they can tell how valuable it is, and you know, it's funny because the night before every game we go down here, and we shoot free throws for 15 minutes and we keep track of what we make, and we've been at ninety percent as a whole team. And it gets now to the point where there's some confidence in that night. I see guys making them. Poor Coop, he's been shooting great there. He struggled a little bit tonight but give Jeremy credit. Sitting on the bench and the only time he goes in and hits two big free throws, late. So, you have free throw shooting. I don't know what it's going to translate into. I just hope it keeps going like it was. We were 16 for 16 at one time.  So, that's really been helpful as we as we move forward. We are getting fouled. Frankie, I mean, he's struggling. He is struggling on some things, but he's averaging, he's got to be averaging eight or nine free throws a game. You know, seven, eight. And there's value to that because not only we get there earlier, but he also makes his and somebody's getting in foul trouble, so it's a three headed monster.

On Jaden Akins' performance…
Jaden is a pretty confident kid, so I don't think he lacks his confidence, but let's face it. I mean, we haven't pulled any punches here. We have struggled shooting the ball. I told you of all the guys I got, there's nobody that works on it harder and I just think sometimes he's not ready to shoot like he should be. But he's getting there today. You know he had to take a couple of bad ones because of the shot clock because people put him in a bad position. Talk about our bigs didn't play very well, but (Jaxon) Kohler gave him an unbelievable pass and he gave one to Jase for three's. That was sensational. So, Kohler had two assists. I didn't think he played really well in the first half either and he led us in rebounds in the first half. So, guys are doing more, but it was hard to get the ball into Jaxon the way they were just swarming anything inside. It's probably why we took 24 three's, and I still think most of them were wide open. I thought we had good looks. Just didn't make them.

On the significance of college basketball holiday tournaments…
I think they're important because it gives you something in November, December that's exciting. I mean, you look at the teams now. I think three of the teams are ranked in the top five or six that are in Maui and some other ones are every bit is good. So, it's a loaded field, but there's other tournaments and I think they bring a little something. The advantage to Maui is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, so It doesn't interfere with football for the most part. Maybe a little Monday night, but I think that's a that's a plus. So, I think it's good, but what's the minus? It's a 10-hour flight. We fly into Oakland and then fly over from there, but coming back, it's difficult too, but I think we scheduled properly. We always have to come back and play the ACC challenge. And by not playing that, we gave ourselves an extra two days because that's always a brutal trip coming back, but I think our guys will be excited about it. The competition is going to be unbelievable. We'll get another view on where we are, and we got to play better. We got to play more consistent, and our defense has been pretty good, but it's kind of let us down in stretches here, you know. Second half of year, first half against Bowling Green. So, I get to shorten that up a little bit.

On Tre Holloman and Jeremy Fears minutes tonight…
Well, we didn't want to play Tre that many minutes, and you could tell it probably affected his shooting. It was just one of those nights where, you know, early on I didn't think Jeremy, but Jeremy will bounce back. He's a tough kid, he will bounce back, and we still played 13 minutes. Tre has only been playing 12 because he's been in foul trouble two of the three games. So, that's the only thing about him, but between Tre and Jeremy and Jase and Jaden, we got four pretty good guards now that can do some things, but they're not all where they need to be yet. And they're getting there, but it was really good to see Jase. He played really well, and he played really poised. And that's kind of what he is, even in Kansas, the moment is never too big for him. That's the one thing I'll say about him. And he was really good on the bench. He was really good at half time. He's got some energy to him. I thought the difference was in our team. The energy level was so much better and that is what's amazing. I was talking to Nick Cronin today and he told me about a coach that said something that I don't like starting out shooting the ball well. And I looked at his stats out there and his best shooter. I think's he has been one for 14 from the three and he's shooting in the 20s and I said, well, you might not like it, but I'd like to be shooting better than we are. He said, yeah, but look at the other side. He said, I learned from you that if you defend and rebound you can win games. And what this has done is we've had to find a way to win games other than shooting it. And eventually we're going to shoot it better and his point was, we're going to be so much better then. It's kind of a backwards way of thinking since Nick moved from the Midwest to out west, I think he got little cuckoo on me, but I love him. I think he's right on the money on that and I think we're going to do a better job. We just got to make sure now we don't think our offense is going to carry us. We got to use our defense and our rebounding. And we didn't rebound as well either. But I'm telling you now that team comes at you. I wish you knew how difficult. The thing that was really good was look at Tre: six steals, Jase: four steals. I don't think we've ever had 13 steals in a game. And they're the pressing team and only had seven. So, there's some good things we're doing. It's just it doesn't look good and then doesn't feel good when the ball's not going. Our fans when we hit two threes in a row, they were phenomenal, but I don't blame them for not being when that ball is clanging off the rim. We're going to shoot it better. Those guys have all shot well enough over their careers that it's going to come back, and Jeremy will bounce back. Every day it could be a different guy in a way for a while until we get things ironed out. I mean, we're five games in, not 15.
On the start of the game and what changed throughout …

They started making shots, we turned the ball over, and that led to some of their fast-break points. Had some lapse in the transition defense, we were mixing up man and zone, trying to do different things that would make them miss shots, something we get really good at the end of the year. Fortunately it's not the end of the year. Couple times we had a couple guys in man, a couple guys in zone on missed shots and it hurt us. So we got loose in transition and that got their one going and eventually they made some threes. They're tough obviously, they got a size advantage so you are caught in that dilemma all the time about do you double the post and not let them score at the rim or do you trap the post and they're going to be more open from three. They hadn't shot the three great so we chose to trap the post and they banged in a couple.

Samford Head Coach Bucky McMillan

On trying to keep MSU off the foul line …
We had some bad fouls, they shot what 97% from the line? They were great from the line and they are tough because, obviously, they have size and they are built tough. So we were trying to play without fouling, but their physicality, if you don't have some fouls they are going to offensive rebound.

On the start of the second half and the energy they found again …
We always want to play with an edge. Obviously we don't want to cross the line, we don't want technical fouls or anything like that. Our guys are tough, we play with a kind of angry face kind of defense no matter who we play. That's what I like about Julian (Julian Brown), he doesn't back down, he's a New Jersey kid that won't back down from anybody and like I said, that was one of the strengths of our team is they believe they can play with anybody and I think you saw that. They're (Samford) gonna go toe-to-toe and they got to believe that they can physically play with anybody and now we gotta get to the point where we can mentally play with anybody and not make mistakes and be as tight as we can be as the season goes along.

On Jaden Akins causing problems to their zone defense and playing a team the caliber of Michigan State …
They got a bunch of good players and they are actually a hard team to zone. Speaking of it, Izzo, it should be the Izzone. He's great with zone offense so they run some good stuff. So it was difficult, we tried to throw them off balance, pressing back to our zone so they couldn't just walk right into our face. You can only hold in the place for so long. One thing that I thought our guys did a great job, even in the zone was the rebounding. 30-30. That usually doesn't happen when you are playing Michigan State, definitely doesn't happen for a mid-major. Our guys have a lot of heart. Because that is the biggest thing that can kill your zone, is just offensive rebounds over and over and guys fought were able to rebound the basketball.

On opportunities and challenges with playing in a holiday tournament …
Well, you get a lot of games in a short amount of time. We are playing more games than we were years ago, I know the players want to play games, that's for sure. The deal is we just wanna get better every game, we got all new guys, we had a point guard last year and everybody that's returning is a freshman. So we are an inexperienced group right now. I think our ceiling is up there, we can get really good. Every game we gotta get better, that's the key. I do want to say this, I mentioned this last year, it was very hard for us to find games and get a game like this, so we appreciate Coach Izzo to agree to play the game because it helps our program tremendously and our guys got a lot better for it, but it also helps our program from the financial side as well. We just really want to thank Michigan State for playing this game, we can't find many people to do it. We are appreciative of a coach that gave us an opportunity to come here and play.

On how setting up a game like this works …
Well our Athletic Director Mark Newton, he knows everybody in this world that relates to basketball so he made the call and we got the game. It was difficult to schedule these games, all the analytics so it takes a coach that isn't afraid to play and that's Coach Izzo, he's not afraid to play.

On major teams not wanting to play a team with back-to-back conference championships …
Yea, it's just that the analytics are so different. They really want to play games that show analytically that guarantees they can win by a lot, as you know I think the reason that Coach izzo's teams are so good when it matters, basketball we know is a tournament sport, that he focuses on the long game always. And that is why they keep getting better. They keep playing in wars and they focus on the long game and they know that it matters most in March. And that is why he's been one of the best coaches to ever coach the game. He keeps his eyes on what matters.

On forcing mistakes and playing with a lot of pressure …
We just want to find the most fun way to win and we want to create a lot of possessions in the game so that guys felt like when they played a game when they played 5 minutes it felt like 10, they played 20 minutes it felt like 40. We are in Alabama obviously and I grew up in Alabama and I dont think it's good enough just to play a style that just wins. I think you have to play a style that everyone can rally around. In our state, we are one of the top scoring teams in the country with the fastest pace in the country. That does a lot in Alabama, when you come down here it's football, football, football, but if you come to a Samford game you don't see a lot of points scored and that's what we want and guess what that does. It's a long-term play too, right? Because now we score a lot of points, players are getting better and we play more guys, so now that when they come back the next year, the freshmen have some experience and the fans are there in Alabama because they want to see some points scored. So we are thinking long game with that. When I played basketball in high school where a point guard may take one or two shots a game, may play in the 40s and my wife said if I coach, 'we are going to find the most fun way to win.' So that's what we try to do.

On the long game and playing teams like this in November …
You got to find out your weaknesses, if you just play a weak schedule, you don't find out your weaknesses until it's too late. And if you play talented teams that are not well-coached, we don't find out where we are. Even as a coach, like here's where we are going to get better. But you're playing against a really talented team with a great coach. So they are going to expose the things that we got to get better at. And you would rather do it early than late. I know versus Kansas, we learned a lot, we played Purdue last year early and got smoked and we learned a lot from that game so that when we played Kansas at the end of the year, we were significantly better and we were probably a play away from getting out there to win the game. So we will take this and we will learn the things that we got to do better and the next one I think we play Arizona so we have another big game in December. Hopefully, not saying we are going to win or lose but hopefully we correct those mistakes.

Michigan State Senior Guard Jaden Akins

On how he feels about his play overall…
I feel like I played solid. I feel like I am proud of myself for not letting misses early affect me that much. I told myself to keep going and stay at the rim and stay dangerous, and I feel like that helped me think about the game because I missed my first couple of shots but I just kept going after that.

On what shot he felt sparked the team…
One shot that sparked us was Book's (Xavier Booker) shot, and he came in and made that first three. They had a lot of momentum.They were up by 11, and he made that three so I feel like Book's shot really kind of saved us today.

On what happened with the technical…
I got a tech like that last year, when I actually said something but this time I was just kind of screaming and motioning. I cannot look that way if I do that.

On the different looks they got during the game…
It was really valuable because I have never played a team like that since being in college that presses the whole game. We only had two days to prepare for that, and we made some mistakes. Going down the road in bigger games, it is going to be useful that they pushed us like that.

Michigan State Point Guard Tre Holloman

On the intensity of tonight's game vs. Samford…
We had to take the game to them; we couldn't let them take it to us.

On his nine assists and giving the offense energy…
As backup point guard, I just have to come in and take care of the ball and get the right people shots. That's what I did tonight, I had a couple of bad turnovers so I'm just gonna watch film and take it from there.

Michigan Stae Forward Xavier Booker

On the energy brought off the bench…
Energy off the bench, that's for every team, second unit picks up off of the first group energy or brings the energy up from them. So, I feel like we did a good job of that, we drove really hard and that gave us a chance to get good open shots, just the whole energy was one of the main reasons we got back in the game.

On his three lifting the team after being in a shooting slump…
Seeing the first one go in is always a big sign, a confidence booster for yourself and the team, definitely when I made that shot that got the whole place going, so I'm sure it got the whole team going and it felt good to do that, just the whole group came in and we made play after play after play and that's what ultimately got us back in the game.

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Jaden Akins

Xavier Booker

Carson Cooper

Tre Holloman

Jase Richardson

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