WATCH: Michigan State F Frankie Fidler Discusses His Role, Looks Ahead to Illinois, More

Michigan State senior forward Frankie Fidler had his best performance of the season in the Spartans' win over Penn State on Wednesday. Watch as he talks about his role, the team's upcoming test with No. 19 Illinois and more.

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EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan State senior forward Frankie Fidler comes off his best game as a Spartan, having recorded a season-high 18 points while adding seven boards and four steals.

For Fidler, it was a performance he's familiar with turning in, having been a first-team all-conference level player at the University of Nebraska Omaha before he transferred to Michigan State this past offseason.

He doesn't have the same role with this Spartans team, but nonetheless, he's embracing the role Michigan State needs him to serve in, and along the way, he's becoming a better player because of it.

Fidler addressed the media on Friday. You can watch some of his media availability below:

Below is a transcript from Michigan State coach Tom Izzo's opening statement of his postgame press conference on Wednesday:

Izzo: "New shirt tomorrow: 'Be the same.' That's going to be tomorrow: 'Be the same.' Really disappointed in maybe my defensive performance. And I'm telling you -- I'm taking full responsibility for that because I knew we were -- I thought after that game, we had given up 40 points in the last two games [in the second half], and we did not learn much from it. We talked about it, we talked about it as a staff, we talked about it with our players, we talked about talking to the officials, we talked about the way things are, and I didn't get much carry-over tonight, so that means, I did not do a very good job of getting through to my guys. So, I can promise you tonight, I'm going to figure out a way to get through to them. On the positive side, 24 assists on 32 baskets is amazing. 20 out of 24 free throws. Got there a lot, made free throws. 10 turnovers was good, but we had three at halftime, and we had four or five in a row during that run when we were up 10. And that happened at Northwestern. So that means we cannot handle success right now. So quit saying where we are. Because we're not anywhere yet. We're a good basketball team that's got a long, long, long, long ways to go to get better. OK? Period. That's where we are. And Frankie Fidler had a hell of a game, but other than that, I thought we were very pedestrian-like. We took bad shots, the wrong guys were taking some shots -- we got to get other guys some shots. And I'll answer any questions you got, but not many times this year have I been disappointed in our defensive performance. Tonight, I'm very disappointed."

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