Tom Izzo met with the media following No. 5 Michigan State’s 73-56 win over Indiana on Saturday afternoon at Assembly Hall.
Watch his comments in the media player below:
Select quotes are available after the jump.
Opening Statement
“Knowing Tom Crean like I know him, I’m pretty sure both coachers were a little bit upset by the way we played in the first half. I don’t think either team played very well. They turned it over; we turned it over, and neither one of us shot very well. I was disappointed in us, to be honest with you. They did a good job on (Adreian) Payne, but we didn’t get him the ball enough. He has to get more shots and (Keith) Appling has to do a better job of staying out of foul trouble. Each time we have come to Indiana, Keith has been in foul trouble. Credit our guys in the second half because we really locked up defensively. Other than the last few minutes, I thought we executed much better. I thought (Gary) Harris was unbelievable. He’s a special player, and I promise he’s not even close to where he’s going to be. His conditioning right now is nowhere near where it needs to be, but he was solid defensively and he did some good things on offense. There were times when he backed off because he was fatigued, but we also got a lot out of Matt Costello and Branden Dawson. I think our main thing now is getting our rotation down. With all the injuries we have had, we’ve just been a little bit out of sync. We used to have a pro rotation where guys automatically knew when they were going in and we are not there yet right now. We are probably a week or two away from having a set rotation. We are just glad to get two big road wins. Indiana played so well against Illinois, and I think they should have won that game. I don’t think Indiana played as well today, and I don’t think we played as well today. I’m not sure if our defense had something to do with it or not, but it was still a big, big road win for us.”
On Michigan State’s ability to go on big runs:
“Indiana is awfully young right now and our guys are veterans. I think our win against Texas was big in that it taught us how to win on the road and it taught us what we have to do against good rebounding teams. We came into Indiana and were up seven or eight on the boards, even though we did a poor job on the glass the last 10 minutes. That’s something we are going to go back and work on tomorrow. We are getting better, but I think we have a ways to go. I think Indiana will get a lot better I really, really do. Their kids are going to get better, and I think this was maybe a game they just didn’t play as well in.”
On Gary Harris getting his explosion back:
“We showed him a tape that we had of him last year where he took a lot of shots from three, and I showed him before the game to point out that, `Gary, you’re not playing this way now.’ He’s coming off kind of passive, and he gets that. He told me on the sideline today, `Coach you better bump up my conditioning.’ The big thing is that we need to improve the play of the bigs. (Denzel) Valentine and (Travis) Trice have to be dynamite coming off the bench, and we didn’t play that way today.”
On this being only the 13th time that Izzo has won at Indiana:
“I think that tells you a lot of things, that tells you that maybe we weren’t good enough, and it tells you that Indiana has been such a dominant program throughout the years. They have had some legendary coaches at IU, and I think they are going to have one right now. The students are on break, and this crowd was still really impressive. This place was packed, and I think that’s why legendary programs make it very hard for other teams to win on their home court. That’s why I’m sure not going to discredit how big this win was against a good team on the road in such a tough place to win.”
Filed to: Michigan State Spartans, Tom Izzo