Tom Izzo Weekly Presser Penn State Week!

Tom Izzo Weekly Presser Penn State Week!

Breslin Center

East Lansing, MI

The #16 Michigan State Spartans lost to the Wisconsin Badgers 64-63. The loss took the men in green’s season record and conference record to 16-6 (8-3).

The team will return to the hard-court Tuesday, February 4, 2020, in East Lansing, at the Breslin Center. They will be taking on Penn State. It can be seen on BTN at 8:00 PM ET.

Earlier today, Hall of Fame head coach Tom Izzo had his weekly press conference. Above is the entire video and below is a partial transcript:

Opening Statement…

Well, to say I was very disappointed in our performance the other day would be an understatement, because it was. I don't know why the first half was like the way it was. I think we all got to take some responsibility for it. I think we have to give some credit to Wisconsin. After watching more and more film of it, God they hit some shots. That's what's going to happen to us, and that's what's going to happen when you go on the road, and that's what's going to happen when you play teams where there's some adversity. I think it's still important to protect our home court. That's still our big mission. We've got another big game tomorrow night. We have to get great play out of our two leaders and our two best players in Cassius (Winston) and Xavier (Tillman). That consistency is something… not one half. We need both halves, and we need a whole game. On the other side of it, I'm very pleased with the performance of Rocket Watts. He's getting better and better. We thought Malik (Hall) showed some signs of making some improvements, so we're pleased about that.

As far as Penn State goes… They might be the hottest team in the league right now. They won two road games. Won four-straight games. They have experience and guys that have been through those battles for four years in (Lamar) Stevens and (Mike) Watkins. They were there when they were building this thing. Pat (Chambers) has done a great job of kind of hanging in there each year, and now he's got a team with some experienced bigs. He's got some experienced guards, and he's got some young guards. He's playing a lot of people. He's playing nine people. A lot of clones, but (Lamar) Stevens is their go-to guy, averaging 17 points and seven rebounds. He's one of two or three players that has scored 2,000 points in their careers there. (Mike) Watkins is a monster. He's a shot blocker. He's averaging 10 points per game. He leads the team with more than eight rebounds per game. As I said, he creates a lot of havoc down there as far as shot-blocking. Myreon Jones has been as consistent as anybody. He's averaging 14 points. He's a good 3-point shooter. He's shooting almost 50 percent. The (Myles) Dread kid, who is from the state of Michigan even though he's moved around, he and Curtis Jones are two very good guards. So, they've got a little bit of everything. They've got guards, and they've got bigs. I think they're well-coached, and they're a hot team right now. So, there's no question we've got our work cut out for us. I've not been very pleased with how we played. I've tried to say that lately. We've had our moments, but we're not very consistent right now. I do think the sickness of Gabe (Brown) hurt us. He's one of our energizer guys, and he just couldn't go in the game. He was sick for the two days before. He was sick the day of. He seems to be coming back. He practiced for most of the practice yesterday. That will help us a little.

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