Post-Game Quotes: Ohio State
2/25/2024 8:22:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo
Opening statement…
Well. That was very disappointing. You lead for all but .06 seconds and tied for a minute. We didn't deserve to win the game. They deserve to win the game. We made plays, its hard to say what our defense was. We held them to 22 in the first half. It's just such a shame for me. The crowd was unbelievable. These players, sometimes they expect everybody to give to them, they got to give something back to the crowd and we didn't do that. That was disappointing. We're not going to win many games if our two shooters go 6-24. Both [Walker and Akins] of them struggled. I thought Booker did a nice job, I thought Coen (Carr) played okay. We didn't rebound the ball, we didn't make wide open shots and that can be frustrating. We only turned it over 10 times and it was four of them in the last minute. I have a lot of film watching to do and see what went wrong.
On what changed defensively in the second half that allowed Ohio State to shoot better…
I thought Devin [Royal] who hasn't been playing much, really hurt us, he gets 14 points there. I thought sometimes guys let their offense dictate their defense. I thought A.J. Hoggard) did a hell of a job on (Bruce) Thornton. Even though Roddy [Gayle] went 3-10, he got three offensive rebounds, got fouled and went 6-6 at the line. If you look at their stats other than Royal, they're not very good and yet we lose at home. They shoot 37 and 17 and we lose at home. Rebounding was a part of it, not getting to the line enough was part of it, best shooters not able to make shots was a part of it, I didn't do a good enough job coaching them was a part of it. Give them credit, they were down 13 and 12 and they didn't quit. So give them credit.
On much of an x-factor is it running into a team that is coming off a big win…
I don't think any. I really don't. I just think, when you got three seniors that had been through the wars, that shouldn't have anything to do with it. We're playing for a lot too and we're playing at home in front of a crowd that was so good. In between ripping me and us, which is deserved, I at least thank them because they did a better job than I did mine. I really don't think it has anything to do with it. Sure they won a game, they also went to Minnesota and lost. Everybody has beaten somebody this year. It was more about us then it was about them.Â
On what change defensively in the second half with Xavier Booker on the bench…
Well those guards were running off ball screens and we just didn't think he was as available to do things as opposed to our veterans. It was a coaching decision we made. I love what Booker did, he did a lot of good things. But there were some things that you didn't see that he didn't do. That's the only thing that changed. He did have some blocks, he did have some things, give him credit for that. At the same time, he struggled rebounding the ball, they were getting rebounds in there and he blocks a shot. There was nothing bad. Everything I thought about Booker was good.
On if he saw growth and improvement in the defensive intensity…
I saw some. I thought there was a lot of loose balls that we didn't get. Like I said, we had two guys who really struggled, when you struggle shooting the ball that much, it affects all your game. I didn't think we guarded as well with those guys either. The numbers show we are somewhat better defensively.
On if everyone was playing desperate in the 7-0 swing in the second half…
I didn't think we were desperate the whole game if you want the truth. Our defense was pretty good but we weren't making shots ever. The whole game we had wide open shots. Tyson had about three at the end and we didn't make any of them. I don't know if that's desperate. I think people don't play as desperate now, they're more worried about their own game. Desperate means you're worried about the team. We missed some great shots. You can't score 60 points at home, that hasn't happened I think in a long time.
On if Ohio State was guarding Tyson Walker well or was it an off night…
I think he was frustrated with that. It wasn't the calls. When you're one of the better players, you're going to get defended. I thought A.J. [Hoggard] did a hell of a job on Thornton, he gets two breakaways because of turnovers, other than that he was 2-11. Tyson has to realize people are going to come at him more, double him, come off ball screens. For some reason tonight, I thought it really frustrated him. Like I said, if my two shooters, shoot that way, nobody is going to win with that.
On how to stop the bleeding after two-straight losses at home…
We been going on a pretty tough schedule. Now this week we get five to six days in between games and its spring break. You think that's good, its not good. Last week I gave them two days off because I thought they were so worn down. This is going to be the one time I'll say this. They got to figure something out too. We had a really good couple days of practice. Early on when we missed some shots, guys heads went down. To me, that's ridiculous. It's a day and age where we're not allowed to blame anyone else, so I'll take all the blame. Players got to make some decisions. We had enough good shots, we had enough chances to get a rebound and we didn't do that. We got to do a better job at that.
On Ohio State playing without Jamison Battle…
I think that helped them. Last year, they played without a great player and I warned my staff about that. I thought Gayle did a lot more. I don't know if Royal would've played as much. In fact, he wouldn't have because they would have played him at the four. I thought they went to Okpara a little bit more. Give Jake credit. I swear if someone is missing a player and I don't find out until right before the game, its never a good thing from my standpoint.
On what it might take for a bench player to step up for a starter…I know when I was a player that would've been a dream come true. I mean, you never hope that somebody else gets hurt or somebody else is sick but I remember one time when a freshman coach that I had said, don't worry about why you get the opportunity, just make sure you take advantage of the opportunity; a guy named Dwayne Jones who coached at UD and all over. It's a pretty good point, some guys do that, some don't. I just thought that they had a couple guys, give Devin Royal credit, he really stepped up. We look at the rest of their stats, they're not really good either and neither are ours.
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On how moving Mady Sissoko to the bench may have impacted his confidence…
Here's the deal on that because I know most of you have gone to every practice since I started the season and you saw what Booker was like. I think it was Tyson Walker that said to me two days ago, 'man, he's improved in two weeks.' So, the easy thing for a writer to do is to say, 'why didn't you play him more, why didn't you do this,' and trust me when I say Book knows exactly what's going on. I've spent hours with Book. Hours. And he's told me what he was feeling and what he thinks he wasn't ready for and was. We did it because we thought the matchup at center was more his size, compared to some of these beasts that we've played against. And so that has something to do with it. You don't want to put a guy in there and he gets crushed, and the confidence goes to hell. But, we'll be able to build on this with Mady. We've got a strange situation the next game because you've got a guy that is so big and they [Purdue] go to so often, so we'll have to make some decisions. I'm really proud of Mady, he gave interviews to somebody in here and Jay Wright, who was calling the game, said it was one of the best interviews he'd ever heard. He didn't complain, didn't do this and that. He explains things very well and I think there's an advantage to letting you guys come to practice, if you really come there to look and watch and not gossip and talk, you'd see what he could and couldn't do. And he is getting better and that's what should happen. Just like it did to Draymond at the end of the season and just like it did to Xavier Tillman. That's what the process is. So, we're going to continue to grow with him and he's going to be a superstar. I really believe that he's getting stronger. He'll have to get tougher and hopefully we'll make some progress this year with what we've got left.
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On how concerning the leadership issue still is…
Being a leader doesn't mean that you're experienced. We've had experienced guys that couldn't lead their way out of a bathroom. Just because you're experienced doesn't mean that you're a leader. Leadership is something that we're all craving for, we're all looking for. Leadership is something that is within, you have to take care of yourself, and you have to take care of others, that's what leaders do. There's not a lot of people and I told you I thought COVID hurt that because we all siloed in on ourselves. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that our leadership is very good, but I told you that in the beginning I didn't think that somebody was going to give someone a shot and all of a sudden they were a leader, because that doesn't happen. There's some great players that you followed that we're great players and not great leaders. There's another guy that's not a great player, maybe, but is a great leader. And that's the problem. I don't know if that had anything to do with tonight. I thought I put a lot on A.J. and I was really pleased with A.J. tonight. I'd like to see him rebound a little bit better, but he played damn-good defense on a very good player in Thornton. He [Hoggard] went 4-8, he made 1-1 from the 3, had nine points, four assists, one turnover, a blocked shot. I thought A.J. played very well. We're just not very strong and it's not just our size. They go inside and get fouled; we go inside and they call it a walk. I was a little disappointed with that and the officiating too but that's the way it goes when the basketball gods get you.
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On whether he heard a voice in the locker room about getting through this… Â
Everybody's pretty down about it. Thank God we've got a week in a way but no. And that's totally not abnormal. The first one, yes. The second one, I think the guys led the whole game and were stunned with … I don't know what kind of shot that was, was it open? He was just falling away kind of I heard? I didn't really see it, the refs that I thought were average got in the way of mine. So, I didn't see it. I think everybody was pretty down which could be a positive too. They should be down. I don't remember losing two games in a row. I don't know, Matt [Larson], you'd know. So, I'm going to have figure out how I'm going to change that. It's just disappointing that we would shoot as poorly as we shot. I mean when Ty had that one in the corner, he had two in the corner with nobody near him. I just hoped those would go in. If they don't go in, you don't win. If they do go in all of a sudden, you're up … you know Book had one halfway down I think would've put us up 11 or 12. Ty had a couple that would've put us up seven or eight. The game changes a lot. We didn't do a very good job at the end. We kind of figured we knew what they'd go to, and they went to it. Kind of a blown coverage, Mady had doubled the low post a couple times earlier and he got that foul which was half phantom. And so, they deserved to win.
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On how much this loss stings compared to others…
I would say this one stings just about as bad as any loss I've had in eight or ten years. I just felt like we practiced well enough to really play well. I didn't care who they had. I was just more worried about us than them. And we didn't. So, at the end of the day, as it always is, I have to take the responsibility for that and will. I just got to make sure I watch the film and know everything I'm talking about before I do it. But I'll do it and I'll watch it tonight, I'll try to figure it out. But, you know, nobody tried to miss shots. The crowd tried hard to keep us in it. They were so damn good; I just feel bad. I am different from a player. I do feel like I play for all the people. I play for 600,000 alums; I play for every player that ever played here and I'm saddened to think I don't see enough players doing that in this day and age and I do feel bad about that. But times are changing, and things are changing, it's just part of the new world. I'll look at that, try to figure it out, so whatever.
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On Carson Cooper and Jaxon Kohler's play…
That's exactly right. With Kohler and Xavier, we've got more offense and Mady was by far the best rebounder of the bunch. I don't know what he ended up with, but he got his hands on a lot of them, he got six in 15 minutes, he's by far the best rebounder and did a good job defensively in a lot of ways besides maybe in that last one. But I didn't think Coop was quite as good as he's been defensively or rebounding and I should check and see before I say it. I thought Jaxon played O.K.. Coop had nothing but a foul and a turnover you know. Didn't get a rebound in, but maybe it's hard to do that in seven, eight minutes, I don't know. But I thought in some ways we rotated what we could to get what we could out of some of the guys for what we were missing. The rebounding was hurting us and that's why we did what we did.
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Freshman Forward Xavier Booker
On first career start…
It felt great, just hearing my name called in the starting lineup that has always been a dream of mine. It definitely felt good to be out there with the starting group playing a lot more minutes than I normally do. It was great even though we didn't get the win. But I had a good time and a real nice smile, it made me happy to start. Â
On best part of his performance…
I would definitely say defensively. I was able to block a lot of shots and get a few good contests on guys. I was in the right spots on offense and was able to get offensive rebounds and put them back. I was in the right spots in transition. It was just being in the right spots on offense and playing solid defense.
On diminished minutes late in the game…
It was a little rough. But, I trust my guys and I trust we could have got the job done. Obviously, it didn't happen, but I have faith in my guys and whatever coach wants us to do. Whatever lineup he wants to put in, I have faith in. I have faith in coach, his lineup, I have faith in him and what he is doing.
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Senior Guard Tyson WalkerÂ
On how Ohio State defended him…
I just can't miss those shots. They did a good job of not letting me get the easy ones. I need to figure out ways to get my shot off.
On team accountability…
We all have to do our job, me specifically. I can't go out there playing like that. We just have to do more offensively and defensively.
On the mindset and matchup with Purdue…
We just have to do whatever it takes to win. It's a tough place to play and we just have to be locked in.
On whether today was an off game vs a game that could be controlled more…
We didn't rebound enough and we gave up too many second chance points. We did a good job guarding the three and they didn't shoot a good percentage but they did get to the line a few times. Overall, too many second chance points.
On impact of Xavier Booker's presence…
in the paint and Malik (Hall) can be down there one on one. It just helps us all around. bigsThe spacing of the floor improves because he can shoot the ball so well. Honestly, that is really it. Defensively he is really good and can block shots, but his shooting can help space the floor and that is a big part of it. They can't sit two
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HallMalikSenior Forward
On Jamison Battle unexpectedly sitting out and mental impact of that news…
It changed up coverages a bit. Mentally, I don't think it should change anything. The focus, the energy and the passion that you are supposed to play with should all still be the same. Obviously, it isn't going to be the same of how you are going to defend things, but, it shouldn't change much other than how we would cover things.Â
Ohio State Interim Head Coach Jake Diebler
On what gave them the ability to come back from twelve down with ten minutes to go to win tonight...
First and foremost I've got to give glory to God and just said Lord make it happen in a way that it's only because of you, but listen, we earned the right to play well because of how we finished last game, I believe that. Our guys finished the Minnesota game in a manner that gave us the chance to transition to this building against an obviously Hall of Fame, all-time coach, veteran team who is certainly capable of doing special things this postseason. Our guys stayed together. I think that's the biggest thing and kept fighting and we did that throughout the course of this game.
On the last six seconds of the game...
Yeah, that was me drawing up a play, coach Izzo taking that play away, and players making plays. Dale [Bonner] shot it obviously, it was incredible, but when you think of the poise Devin [Royal showed taking the ball out of the bounce with no time outs when our first option was taken away, Bruce [Thornton] double-cutting to get open, having the awareness to get the ball down the floor. Then Dale had the awareness to get a shot up. I mean literally, that was players making plays and it started obviously with Devin Royal and his poise taking it out of bounds and obviously Roddy Gayle's free throws were so huge, it was special.
On how he's managed the distractions the last couple weeks...
I think the special thing that I'm really proud of is the way our guys have stayed together. This has been a really hard week and a half. Because of how much I care about coach Holtmann and how big of an influence he's been and how much he has been a mentor to me, personally. So that's hard. But Gene Smith told me it is about our players and our staff has embraced that at such a high level that our job is to serve them well. The thing I'm most happy about is the character of our guys and the character of this team has been revealed in these last three games and I'll include the Minnesota game in that because of how it finished. Our guys deserve the credit. They've taken little tweaks and things that we've been able to do and they've embraced it at a high level and they've stayed together at a high level and they deserve all the credit.
On what the first rod win in 17 games/13 months means...
You know, I think it's great for our program because not to run from the numbers you shared, we certainly knew what those were, but our players, they had had good moments on the road, I think sometimes it doesn't always go your way, things happen. But, for them to push through how they did today again says alot about them. For me personally, I think long after this season, hopefully I get a time to step back and just process how this is but I've asked our guys from the first time we met to focus on what we have at hand right now and that is really hard to do considering everything else that's happened and everything else that could be going on so I've got to stand true to that and our staff is committed to doing that. They deserve a ton of credit too. It takes an entire program to get through something like this and perform like they have been able to perform, so I don't want our staff to be forgotten because they have been so critical.Â
ÂOn how close they were to pushing through the deficit the whole second half...
We talked about wanting to be in a position going into the last media timeout, and I believe it was a three point game. The stuff up to that point, this is what we wanted. The reason we were able to get there was because we were so connected in our time outs. Guys embraced the accountability we had and this team, they are such a threat after makes and misses, getting the ball down the floor. We talked about it yesterday. We are all embracing accountability like hey, if you're not sprinting or you get tired just tell me, we'll get you out, we'll get you back in, you backpedal, we can't have that. They embraced the accountability which I think we kept running hard which prevented them from maybe pushing it to that 15, 16 point deficit.
On if he feels like he should have the full time head coaching job...
I know this is not the answer you want to hear, but I am fully committed to serving this team as well as I possibly can right now. I have asked those guys to focus on the task at hand and I've got to lead by example with that. Again, you can't forget the impact our staff has had during this. The leadership of our team is so critical. This is about them. Gene (Smith) asked me to serve them as well as I possibly can. I love this program, make no mistake about that, my brother obviously played here. Since then, it's been something really special. I've gotten to see the brotherhood that is Ohio State basketball and how the former players are connected and how much they care about our program. That's why I am doing this with everything I have. We have had Aaron Craft in our gym, Mike Redd, Mike Conley, and P.J. Hill come to our game. Evan Turner stopped by the office. I'm sure I am missing some guys and I apologize for that, but this whole family and program has come together and that is what it takes in a time like this. We are going to keep focused on the main thing.Â
On his other players stepping up with Jamison Battle missing the game... We did not fully anticipate that until today because he (Battle) was pushing so hard to try and get back. If he could have gotten a little bit more time, another day or so, it might not have been the case. Certainly, our start offensively was not great, I thought guys played to their strengths at a high level. We played together offensively, our motto this last week and a half has been to stay aggressive, keep swinging, if you are open shoot it, do not overthink it, do not over-complicate it. Play and be aggressive, and our guys have done that. They deserve a bunch of credit for buying into that and staying locked into that.
On if he thinks the difference in this game was the defense finishing possessions... Absolutely. What we did not do well against Minnesota, we carried over and did much better today. Our guys embrace the things we talk about, we were really just direct on what we needed to do better. The great thing was we took it as a positive. They were controllable things. Our defense has been better; to guard for 25 seconds and then just not finish the play. I do not have the exact numbers, but I felt like we did that at such a high level specifically the second part of the second half. I think that was a big difference.
On how playing without Jamison Battle affected the team offensively... We talked about how we need to be the tougher team and the more-together team. I just told them before the game, we are down a man, we've got to be even tougher now, we've got to be more together. It caused some issues for us from a spacing standpoint at times. The way they were able to shrink the floor. I thought guys stepped up and played to their strengths. It was not anyone out there trying to do something completely different. We just stayed aggressive within what we were doing and guys sharing the ball. I know we did not have the number of assists we probably would have liked. Some of that was due to our shooting. I thought we did not settle offensively a lot which was really encouraging. Listen, Jamison is an elite player in this league, his shooting was missed certainly, but proud of the way guys stepped up.
On what Devin Royal did today that he has not done other times on what was a career day for him... I know he did not miss many shots, but I think he stayed in the moment and stayed aggressive. I know he got the one shot blocked and he stayed aggressive after that. Even going back to high school and AAU. He has always been productive. He has worked hard, studied the game more. He has continued to build and build and I think we are seeing the fruits of that labor paying off. I am so happy for him. The biggest play of the game for him was the poise he showed taking the ball out of bounds. In this setting, for a freshman to do that... Proud of Devin, I think he has just got a really bright future; we have no reason not to believe that he is going to continue to do some really good things this year for us.
