Everything Gabe Brown said after Michigan State's loss to Wisconsin

The Spartan captain took blame for not getting his teammates more energized for the game against the Badgers

Michigan State men's basketball suffered its second consecutive defeat on Tuesday, falling to Wisconsin by the final score of 70-62 at the Breslin Center. Spartan captain and starting forward Gabe Brown met with the media to discuss what went wrong, and how his team needs to respond.

On only attempting five shots vs. Wisconsin:

“I was more focused on my defense. I don’t really care about my shots, or anything like that. I’m focused on winning, winning games. That’s really all I want to do at the end of the day. Shots are going to come just by me being in the offense, getting to certain spots and my teammates looking for me. But, I just want to focus on defense and winning games at this point.”

On team's offensive struggles:

“It was stagnant. Guys weren’t moving. We were rushing shots. It’s a lot of things that went on, but we didn’t do the things that we were supposed to do on offense. We didn’t swing the ball, we didn’t do the things. I take blame for that too, because I am a captain and I’ve got to get guys going in certain ways. We just didn’t do a good job of that tonight.”

On better offense after halftime:

“We started moving the ball. Guys started getting shots, including myself. Guys started getting to the line. Malik Hall did an unbelievable job of creating for himself. Marcus Bingham as well.”

On the blame for lack of energy:

“I take full blame for all of that. The coaches always take blame, but I take full blame for all of that. Because I am a captain, and that’s one of my jobs. I’ve got to bring energy, and today, I was trying my best to do it but we’ve just got to keep moving forward from this moment on.”

On 2nd half comeback, not finishing comeback:

“We cut it to one. Guys were just playing with a lot of energy, a lot of effort out there. But it’s all about finishing. That’s one thing we’ve been harping on the entire year, especially at practices. We’ve got to finish. We’ve got to finish possessions, finish rebounding, finish things like that, and at that certain point, we didn’t finish.”

On playing with more toughness:

“Getting on guys in practice. That’s where it starts at. Like the old saying, ‘Practice makes everybody perfect’. So, I’ve got to do my best to get guys tougher, get guys mentally locked in on us trying to get wins. Because, we’ve got to win at this point, and that’s all I want to do at the end of the day is just win games. So, I take full blame for not doing the right things out there, because I messed up in some ways too. It’s not all just on my teammates. So, we’ve just got to move on and get better.”

On team not having more energy despite coming off a loss:

“That’s why I talked about – we’ve got to finish. We’ve got to do things in that manner, and bringing energy is something that we all have to bring to the table. Every single player has to bring energy in order for us to go forward. So, that’s my job as a captain. I’ve got to bring energy. I’ve got to bring more and more energy, and guys just have to follow along.”