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Michigan State Spartans Basketball Coach Tom Izzo Post-USC
USC Trojans On SI
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2/2/2025
Michigan State Spartans Basketball Coach Tom Izzo Post-USC
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Sports
Transcript
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00:00
As an assistant, that's it.
00:01
What starts bad ends bad, and how to start was atrocious.
00:04
We wanted to go inside right off the bat, turned the ball over twice.
00:10
We took a couple of bad shots, I think it was nine to three, and
00:14
I think we only had one shot, and then we got down 21 to seven.
00:20
And I'll give our guys credit, they bounced back, but USC played better than us.
00:25
About the biggest things that happened in the game,
00:29
we got punched in the mouth, and I don't know if we responded very well.
00:37
Then before half, we did a little better job.
00:40
But when you don't take care of the boards like we did,
00:47
even though we all rebounded by one, that's kind of a facade.
00:50
They had a couple of times when they had three and four rebounds in a row and
00:53
scored both times, one on the three and one on the three-point play.
00:59
And then uncharacteristically, we shot poorly from the free throw line,
01:03
which we're an 83% free throw shooting team.
01:05
And what did we end up shooting, 57% or something.
01:11
And a couple of those goofy turnovers, and that's really the difference in the game.
01:15
But I give credit to USC, they played well.
01:19
And I've been waiting to see how we would respond to this adversity,
01:25
and today we didn't respond very well.
01:27
So we'll have to fix that quickly since we have another game coming up.
01:32
Questions?
01:34
Tom, I'm wondering about the early start in particular.
01:38
How much did what USC did on the offensive glass take you guys out of
01:42
the transition room?
01:44
Well, I thought the turnovers took us out, first of all, and
01:47
then they really did hurt us on the offensive glass.
01:51
Our bigs did not, well, we didn't have a lot of guys that played well, but
01:54
our bigs, we knew it was a matchup problem with their four men at 6'7",
02:00
6'6", athletic.
02:02
And we knew that was gonna be a problem, but we just had some struggles with
02:05
some guys that normally end up playing better than they played.
02:09
And you're right, what was the fast break points, nine to four.
02:14
We did not get out and run, cuz you can't run without the ball.
02:18
And I think their offensive rebounding had a lot to do with that, so
02:22
give them credit there.
02:23
Was there any type of adjustment you saw Coach Lesnick with the team in the second
02:26
half, he kind of took away that team from the guys who had some success?
02:30
Yeah, I don't know, I mean, I don't know what he'd say.
02:35
I think we took away some of that ourselves.
02:39
We didn't do a very good job getting it in there, and
02:41
then we had to play different guys, and our key guy was Kohler in there.
02:45
And he was struggling, and then Shimon got hurt, and
02:50
he was struggling, Chase Richardson.
02:53
He missed a couple of shots, but he'd been hurt all week.
02:58
And but he practiced yesterday and played, and
03:02
I thought he played pretty well considering the amount of practice he missed.
03:06
But yeah, in general, we did not get the ball inside very much, and
03:10
we did not get it inside out.
03:12
I didn't think, I was surprised that we shot 42%.
03:17
I thought it was gonna be worse, and then we shoot what?
03:20
40, 33 from the three, and they shoot 42 and 31.
03:25
But it was the free throws and the rebound, and I think that was the difference.
03:30
What'd you make of having to travel to LA for a conference game?
03:34
It was great, it was great.
03:36
I mean, all kidding aside, it was, I mean, the trip was smooth.
03:40
I know it's, they said it's gonna be harder going back.
03:43
I don't know if that's true or not, but
03:45
it's a privilege that we get to play in places like this.
03:50
And I do wanna thank our fans.
03:52
We had a lot of fans there today, and I wanna thank our fans,
03:54
all the Michigan State alums.
03:56
They die for games like this, and we get to go to Florida, or Texas, or
04:01
California, and get to be in places.
04:05
So I feel bad that we let them down.
04:07
It's hard with Urban and his wife there to not play Michigan State basketball.
04:13
I think USC had something to do with it, but I think we deserve some blame, too.
04:17
So I'll take some of that blame cuz we did not play the way we have been playing.
04:24
Before the game, you said something on a radio broadcast that you can handle
04:29
the moment of being on the verge of history with the record with Bob Knight.
04:33
But you were worried about the players.
04:35
Did you feel like there was any of that maybe self-created pressure for
04:39
them, knowing that you had that chance?
04:42
I had not talked about that at all up until two days ago when people were asking
04:46
them, and they brought it up to me.
04:48
And it was one of the things that I had breakfast this morning.
04:51
I told them that this is your team.
04:56
I've had a million guys that have helped me get to the number of wins we've gotten.
05:00
And all I want is, I want them to put their mark on something.
05:05
I think winning 13 in a row was a little bit of a mark.
05:08
We're not losing a game in December and January.
05:13
Every team should lead with something that they can hang their hat on.
05:17
If I'm fortunate enough to do that, this team will have that along with it.
05:22
But I don't think that was any pressure.
05:24
That pressure doesn't make you play like we played today.
05:28
We had good practices, so I would say 100% no.
05:34
That is not, it's not anything to me, it really isn't.
05:39
I don't think, I think they'd like to do it for me, but I don't think it's pressure.
05:44
This UFC roster is obviously pretty unique, a lot of transfers,
05:49
really interesting first year roster.
05:51
Just what impressed you about the way that they competed?
05:54
What did you take away about?
05:55
Yeah, well, they've got some good players.
05:57
I mean, those guys are good players.
05:58
And I was really impressed, and I don't know what he ended up with.
06:04
But St. Thomas has really impressed me, and
06:09
he had an average game of Agee, who has been unbelievable with his threes and
06:15
a couple of those games, and he didn't do much tonight.
06:17
But we all know the straw that stirs the drink is clawed, and
06:20
I didn't think we, I thought we did a pretty good job in the first half.
06:24
But second half, he got there and muscled his way in, and
06:28
we just did not handle that well.
06:31
And we all, our staff, like Yates and
06:35
Arbol, so they're good players, they got good size.
06:40
Those guards are bigger than ours, and the foremen are smaller.
06:45
And it was just a tough matchup for us, and
06:47
sometimes matchups make a difference in games.
06:50
It was a tough matchup, and if I had to do it over again,
06:53
I'd probably do some things a little different.
06:57
But I didn't, and so that falls on me.
07:02
Anything else, guys?
07:03
You mentioned about the matchup, that late half lineup that you had,
07:06
I think Carr and Fiddler in there, it was like four and five.
07:10
Was that maybe one of those things that you could have-
07:13
Yeah, I would have gone that small normally, but
07:15
I would have probably gone with a smaller four a little bit more.
07:19
And like I said, I mean, we got good excuses,
07:22
like everybody does, Schumann was sick, and we had some things like that.
07:26
But there's just no reason that you get beat on the boards,
07:31
like we did, and again, for me, winning by one rebound is not exciting at all.
07:41
And especially when they had two or three possessions.
07:45
Really, they shouldn't beat us by a lot more, because they had two or
07:48
three possessions, but they got three at one time,
07:50
four rebounds during one possession, and one of them ended up at three.
07:58
And those are back breakers, and it seems like we just couldn't get over the hump.
08:03
We came back, cut it to three to four, just couldn't get over the hump.
08:06
Cut it to five, we had a wide open three, it just didn't go in.
08:10
So give them credit, they played better than us,
08:12
I thought they played tougher than us.
08:15
I don't say that about any team, but I gotta give them credit.
08:18
And we're gonna have to regroup, cuz it doesn't get any easier going over to UCLA.
08:23
But it has nothing to do with the travel, nothing.
08:28
It has nothing to do with people who are great to us here, our own fans are great.
08:35
We gotta play better, that's our job.
08:38
All set, guys?
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