Jan. 25, 2008

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Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo

Opening Statement . . .
"The game was real good for us. I thought we did a lot of things really well. We defended their stuff about as good as you can defend it. They still scored some points, [Craig] Moore was unbelievable, and a lot of their shots came of offensive rebounds, which is not one of Northwestern's fortes. Maybe they realized why we rebound so well, because it does get you baskets, I thought they got a lot of their baskets not off of offense, but off the missed shot and the kick outs. But as far as the basic offense I thought we did a pretty good job on it. I thought we did a pretty great job against their zone. We moved the ball pretty well and we got some open looks. I was disappointed with our rebounding, of course. We did not rebound the ball very well, and it cost us. I was disappointed that we lost Moore on a couple [shots] early, and they did a good job. Our assists, 25 assists and 29 baskets, were very impressive for us. All in all, our shooting, I mean we don't normally shoot the ball that good, although we do have a pretty good shooting team. It was nice to see our 3-point shooters shoot well, especially Drew Neitzel, He is continuing to progress. I say all those good things, I think Raymar Morgan may have been our star of the game, just because of what he did offensively and defensively and rebounding and handling the ball and playing minutes, and playing the four, playing the three, playing all over the court, so he was the star. Goran Suton was not the star, and we need to get more out of him, and we need to get more out of [Marquise] Gray, and we're going to be a real good basketball team. All in all, I was pleased by the way we defended them, except for those kick out threes that they got time after time, because we didn't rebound the ball good."

On the fast start to the game for MSU . . .
"Well, we set up a few things that we wanted to do offensively, we got a couple of good looks. We hit two threes in the first four baskets, that was good, but defensively, we didn't come out after them. We spent a lot, a lot of time on that defensive. Part of the reason is that weren't playing fresh. That's one of the things that hurt Durell [Summers], and he's been playing pretty well, so if he'll play more minutes in the next game it's for those reasons. Some of our "bigs" went to sleep a little bit, every time we got a big lead it was like we didn't respect it, and I was disappointed in that. We'd do a good job, and then we'd give them nine straight points. But I think that you have to give Northwestern credit. They earned their baskets, including that Hail Mary that Moore threw up from the corner; that was a big play. We just couldn't get over the hump; that was a little disappointing for us.

On the number of Michigan State fans in the crowd . . .
"I guess I love coming to Chicago for that reason. I really appreciated the fans that showed up, some that drove from East Lansing but a lot from the Chicago area. I know the players were talking about it before the game started so that was great and we appreciated it."