Everything Tom Izzo said after loss to Wisconsin

Head coach Tom Izzo shouldered the blame for the Spartans performance against the Badgers

After a 70-62 loss to Wisconsin on Tuesday night, Michigan State men's basketball has dropped back-to-back games for the first time this season. Head coach Tom Izzo met with the media following the defeat to discuss what went wrong for the Spartans.

Opening statement:

“I’ll start off by saying that was a poor coaching job. The team wasn’t ready to play. We got punked from the very beginning. Give Wisconsin a lot of credit, they came in here after losing a game and I thought they played hard as hell the first half. I thought we were very soft.”

“All that being said, they had two shots at the end of the shot clock, right at the buzzer, two threes [before halftime]. Then, in the second half, we played a little better but there were plays down the stretch where they got two offensive rebounds. One after a timeout, they hit a three. We had the ball right in front of us, didn’t get it. The other one, they hit a two, and that’s five points there. And six points on the threes [before halftime].”

“We had two critical turnovers when we were down one [point], and didn’t even get a shot. So, we got what we deserved, and I just did a – you get credit for doing a good job sometimes, I should get blame for doing a bad job because that, to me, was not a very well-coached team tonight. So, I’m taking full responsibility.”

On responding to back-to-back losses:

“Right now, we’ve got to get better leadership, and we have to get better toughness. We out-rebounded them by one, but when we needed critical rebounds down the stretch we just couldn’t come up with them. And give [Wisconsin] credit, they did. When they needed to make critical shots, they hit two layups at the end, they probably shot 44 percent for the game, 33 [percent] from the three. Not outstanding numbers. They had seven turnovers, we had 12. That’s not ridiculous for us, although those two late cost us a chance.”

“We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to get a little tougher. I haven’t had many teams that I’ve had to worry about that with, but I’ve got to worry about that with this team. Because, you saw it, you watched it. I thought every loose ball, [Wisconsin] got. And I thought every loose ball at Rutgers, they got. Is it fixable? Yeah, it’s fixable. It’s always fixable, but we’ve got to do a much better job. So, we’ll go to work on it, I promise you that.”

On offensive struggles:

“We didn’t cut hard, we didn’t screen hard, we didn’t come off [screens] hard. We talked a lot about throwing back, because we know [Wisconsin] shacks ball-screens. And we just took it in there and tried to shoot over a 6-11 guy. We took a lot of, to me, average shots. And you can’t do that against a good, solid defensive team. They’re not an in-your-face defensive team, they are a very solid defensive team. And [Wisconsin coach] Greg [Gard] did a hell of a job with his team. Getting them back after we busted them pretty good [in Madison], and they came back and – whatever the score was, it doesn’t matter – they got us pretty good here. The score – you know I said the 20-point loss to Rutgers was not indicative of the game – well, the eight-point loss here was not indicative of the game. I kept saying, ‘How are we six down?’ We did not play with enough passion, If you ask me. And I don’t know why, but that’s my job.”

“The offense – every offense works. The defense – I wouldn’t change any of the coverages. We were going to double some, and they break through the double and get a layup. Some things we just didn’t do, and I felt it was all physically involved. So, we’ll have to do something about that.”

On Gabe Brown getting only five shot attempts:

“They defended him well, that was some of the reason, [but] we didn’t get the throwbacks. Our guards – we did not do a good job on that, and that was in the game plan. I felt bad for Gabe, because Gabe, I thought, was the one guy that played start to finish. He worked hard defensively, he did a lot of good things. [Wisconsin] did a good job covering him. We did a good job letting them cover him. So, we have to take some responsibility.”

“Max didn’t get many shots either, but we had to put him at the point some because of problems we were having at the point. And, he hasn’t played there much so, in fairness to him, it was probably a desperation move on my part at that time. Not saying it didn’t work, but it didn’t work great.”

On slow starts to games:

“Don’t blame the players. It’s the coach. The coach has got to get his team ready to play. I’m not trying to take the blame, take it off the players. They’ll get ripped enough on the social media. They came out inept, in my humble opinion, and not physical enough. That is my job. So, I mean that. Write it. Say it. I’m not looking for any sympathy, or anything like that. But, I’ll get calls from former players tonight, because that was not how Michigan State plays. Rutgers, a little bit of a different deal, and we played pretty well in a lot of that game. But this game, I didn’t think when it was a two-point game that we were playing very well. And, I give [Wisconsin] credit. They just ground it out, and the right guys took the right shots when they needed them. We did not have the patience to do that. Part of it was their defense, part of it was we struggled with our lead guards to get us into stuff.”

“If we would have played harder, got those rebounds at the end – I mean, we’ve got one rebound…we’ve got it right there, we knock it out of bounds, they hit a three off the out of bounds. Then, the next one, we have the ball, it goes on the floor, they get a two. You just can’t do that against good teams, and don’t kid yourselves, Wisconsin is 19-4 for a reason too. They’re an awfully good team.”

“The guy you’ve got to give credit too is [Wisconsin freshman Chucky] Hepburn. We all know that those other guys – Wahl did some good things. Johnny Davis, he only gets 11 shots too, and Davidson goes 2-for-10. If you told me that was going to happen, I’d say we win. But, I thought Hepburn made a couple of big shots. We didn’t make any shots.”

On Marcus Bingham Jr’s fast start, quiet second half:

“We tried to get Marcus the ball on the block, but as you saw, sometimes he was getting it at the three-point line. I think, in the second half, they took him away. I think he got tired. We didn’t throw it in good enough. Again, another error on my part.”

On Johnny Davis:

“That’s what he is, that’s why he’s a ‘Player of the Year’ candidate. He made that clutch one on the free throw line. He’s a go-to guy, and thy went to him. He can get it off the dribble, he can get it in the post. He did hit two threes, but he hasn’t been shooting as well from the three. I thought he did a good job having patience, knowing where he’s going to get his shot and how he was going to get it. He did a good job.”

On Michigan State’s lack of a go-to guy:

“We thought, when Tyson came down, one on 15, we thought we were going to call timeout right there. We were going to go to Malik a little bit in the post, like we did [with] Aaron Henry, where we hopefully get fouled and get both [free throws]. But, we didn’t do a good job of that. But, that’s not one of our strengths. We’ve got a lot of guys that can do something, but not necessarily a go-to guy.”

“I thought our point guards just didn’t handle that ball screen. [Wisconsin] stepped back, they didn’t guard AJ, and that created some problems. We knew that was going to happen, but we didn’t do the things that we needed to do to make up for that.”

Other thoughts about offense:

“I thought Joey passed up a couple shots, and I thought Malik passed up a couple, so we’ve got other guys taking shots that we don’t need taking shots as much. We want to get the ball into Marcus, it’s just sometimes hard to do. We want to get the ball to Gabe and Max. I think our guards have to realize they’re in there to do other things, and that’s how you run a team. I thought Hepburn did a good job of that. Then, we missed two of those bunnies, two feet in front of the rim and you can’t do that and win big games.”

“Don’t kid yourselves, the game wasn’t lost in the end. The game has been lost when you start out like we started out, and I don’t mean missing shots. I mean, just the way they physically man-handled us was disturbing, and we’re going to have to figure out how we change that.”

On getting this team up to Michigan State’s standard of toughness:

“That is going to be the task that this coaching staff has in the next three days. But, it’s not like it hasn’t been there all year. It’s a little bit of lack of leadership and a little bit of, as coaches, we have to do a better job. That’s the bottom line – we have to do a better job. So, I am putting it all on me, and I’m going to figure out a way. I’ve had coaches call, ‘Don’t ever blame yourself.’ Check this out – I have to do a better job. The team doesn’t play with the toughness, the tenacity – that falls on my shoulders, and I’m going to take every bit of it, and figure out a way that we do it differently, hopefully on Saturday. It’s not like this has been all year. It’s not like we haven’t played with any pizazz, because we have.”

“Our fast break hasn’t been run very well lately. I just think that we’re out of sync a little bit, and we have to figure out what we’re going to do at point guard, and then we’ll get after it a little bit. But, it will fall on me. It will be a good week. Find new ways to fix problems.”