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MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEMarch 31, 2015Tom IzzoCOACH IZZO: Well, 'excited to be here' would be a very average way of putting it. About as excited as I've been in any Final Four we've been going to. Feeling incredibly blessed to be at another one. It's something that never gets old. I think we're looking forward to the challenge. We've not played Duke very well. I shouldn't say that. We've played them pretty well. We've not won any games, or many. That will be the challenge ahead. But when you get this far, the way we've played so far in the tournament defensively and really offensively, I think we've shown that our fast break at times can be very good. We have competed in the halfcourt pretty well. But our defense has been, you know, at another level. I think some of the reasons for that is that Travis Trice has upgraded his a lot, Bryn Forbes has upgraded his a lot. Yet we think after the last two games looking at film we have a lot of improvement we still can make.  This team still isn't a finished product. I guess that's the way it's going to be the entire year. So I'm thrilled to be representing our university in another Final Four. I'm thrilled for our alums. I'm thrilled for the school. I'm thrilled for the students. I'm thrilled mostly for our players. I think it's an incredible accomplishment that they have deserved. If you look at who we played in the last 10 games, it's really been an incredible run to get this far. We've not ditched anybody. We played the best that is out there. We've survived so far, like you're supposed to. Real quickly, as far as Duke goes, I know Duke well. Recruited some of their guys, so I know what they are like. I think Okafor has had an incredible year. I think Tyus Jones has had a great year. I think Winslow has been the difference in the tournament. He's kind of upped his level more than two or three notches. I think Quinn Cook is still the chemistry guys that stirs the drink for that team. He just seems to guard the right people, make the right shots, do a lot of things. Of course, Mike is Mike. He's consistently done an incredible job there. I think there will be great respect between coaches and players, yet we're going down there to try to win another game and survive and advance one more time. So questions, I'll take them. Q. Tom, when you look at Okafor, he does so much well. If he had a weak point, it's guarding in the post. Is that going to be a key with Gavin and Costello, getting him away from the basket? COACH IZZO: I'm not sure that's a strength of ours either as far as that goes. But, you know, I think you got to put him in ball screens, you got to make him move, make him do some things. Hopefully we'll have some wrinkles that we'll try to put in, if there's any weaknesses, to try to find them. That's what these couple of days are for, to find some weaknesses and try to attack them. There aren't many. They're a very efficient team offensively. They're a very solid team defensively. Everybody's got a few warts. You try to find them and you try to exploit them and you try to see how you can capitalize on them. That's what we're going to try to do. But very polished player. He was good early when we played him. Everybody said then that I think Duke will be a much better team at the end of the year. They are. Nobody talked about us being a much better team at the end of the year. We are. Where does that put us? I don't know. You think about the injuries, to Alvin, Javon then, guys we practiced with and thought we could play. You also had a situation with Bryn's wrist, couldn't even dribble a ball, couldn't bend the wrist on his left hand. He's gotten better, we've gotten better, they've gotten better. That's what's supposed to happen in college basketball. You take the four or five months, if teams are on the right track, they should be getting progressively better. I think that's happened with both teams. Q. Branden said you've mellowed in his time at Michigan State. First of all, is that true? You've talked about kids are a little different now than they were when you were coaching Cleaves and those guys. Have you adjusted? COACH IZZO: Well, I think Branden is looking for Brownie points. He ain't getting them. Yeah, I have. I think I've adjusted some. I still think you have a job to do in these jobs I think as a parent and as a coach and as a teacher, that's holding kids accountable to the level they should be held accountable to. Each kid is different. But it's not only holding them accountable to the level you think they should play at, but to the level they want to play at. Personally, I think I've done a decent job of figuring out what they want to be. Don't tell me what you want to be and then not work towards that. If you tell me what you want to be, I'm going to hold you to that standard because I've had enough different players that have not only played at different levels, great college players, great European players, great pro players, but guys that want to graduate and be successful in other things. Mellowed? Of course it's not like the Cleaves days. Those things back then were fistfights. That's the way it was then. You look at some of the guys I admired then, John Thompson, Bo Schembechler, John Chaney, Bobby Knight, Gene Keady, it was the way of the world. Your world changed a little bit too in the reporting world with Twitter, fun things. A little advertisement there. I think in general, have I mellowed a little bit? I've grown to understand a little better the different personalities of everybody. But I still think there's only one way to get it done, and that one way is you better be spilling it every minute or you're not going to make it once you get this deep in the tournament. Still trying to be as demanding as I can be. I think I got a team this year with two guys this year, with Branden at times, but Travis and Denzel, I never question how important it is or what it means to them. They take over sometimes, and that makes it better for me and better for the team. Q. You've said throughout this run that you can't really feel like and underdog even though you're given number seven. Now that you're going against Duke, number one seed, can you start to feel like an underdog now and do you feed off that at all? COACH IZZO: No, you know, I don't want to feel like an underdog. I understand where we are. There's no question that Duke is a favored team. There's no question that Kentucky is the favored team. If we played Wisconsin, they'd probably be the favored team. I guess if you look at it that way, we're underdogged all weekend. I don't look at it that way because I know where this program's at. As far as where this team's at, every time we've been under dogged, we've answered the bell lately. You get this far, I think everybody agrees... I don't know what seed we should have been. It's not like it should have been a lot higher. We earned our keep at the end of the year, but we kind of created our own problems in the middle of the year. Some of it wasn't our fault. There were some injuries, some things we talked about. It really doesn't matter. I think my favorite guy in America right now is Kevin Ollie. I love Kevin Ollie. I hated him last year at this time, but I love him now. I think he's kind of shown us the way. He took a team that had struggled at the end of the year. We actually didn't struggle at the end, we were in the middle. He got on a roll, had a guard that took control. Kevin did a great job. Not only beat us but went on to win a national championship as a seven seed. But can history repeat itself? You never know. Q. Indianapolis is a place you have had a lot of success, whether it's the tournament or the Big Ten. COACH IZZO:  Yeah, I love Indy. Q. What does it feel like going there again? COACH IZZO: It feels great. I think of some of my favorite players, Chris Hill who just called from France, he's flying back over from the game, he's from there. Of course Gary Harris. It's been fun with the Big Ten tournament, the fact we won a national championship there. We've played in some games there of the regionals, big game against Louisville. The people there, I mean, you walk in there, they make you feel like it's home, number one, because I think they're just good, down‑to‑earth people. Number two, I know a lot of them on a personal basis just because we've been there quite a few times. I think it's great. I think it's great for our fans. Three‑, four‑hour drive. It's great for the people in the Midwest, parents of our players. This has just worked out for us like nothing I've ever seen. I'm not a big believer in destiny gets it done. I think hard work gets it done. It sure is fun to be in the right place at the right time in the right tournament. Q. You've had a 16‑year span between the first time you reached a Final Four and now, I think. I've heard other coaches say the reason they like winning and reaching the Final Four changes a little bit. I wonder if that's true for you. I heard Billy Donovan say that one time. COACH IZZO: Changing in what respect? Q. Doing it for other people. COACH IZZO: That is very, very, very true. I mean, I didn't know you were going that way. Now that you went that way, I would totally agree with Billy. I've said a million times to our writers here that one of the goals is for my players to get to have what I have. I've lived my dream as a kid growing up, figuring out where I wanted to go, getting to the pinnacle, being at a university like this, winning some championships, winning the national championship. I just think it's such a memory‑making experience when you do things that few can do. That was my battle cry to my team on Sunday. I just said, Two hours of work for 60 years of memories. That's about the way it is. Those two hours of work is going to get you a lifetime, you know, with your kids, with your grandkids. I mean, you always can state something that few can state. So in winning a national championship it even shrinks that group of people down. I want it for our players, but I do want it for our fans, for our administration. People here have been awfully good to me. I think this is one of the ways you get to pay 'em back. When you sit there and walk around a court on Sunday, you just kind of look up, there seem to be so many people there from Michigan State. That's all I could think about is, Think how many people are happy. So I would agree. Until you go to that first one, you just don't realize how big it is. Once you experience anybody you care about, anybody you care about, you want them to be able to experience the same thing. Q. You alluded to Okafor being a polished player, Tyus Jones, Cook keeps it going. You also alluded to Justise Winslow, how he's been the real difference in this tournament run. Can you talk about how the matchup between Dawson and Winslow will be. COACH IZZO: I think it will be one of the critical matchups because I think Winslow has lifted his game just a couple levels. Look at free‑throw shooting, he was shooting 53%. In the tournament he's shooting 82%. If you look at his three‑point shooting, it's gone up drastically. His points have gone up some. He just looks like a player that went from a little freshman who didn't know what the hell was going on to a pretty polished player. I mean, he's really made some jumps I think in the last couple of weeks. From an outsider, I wasn't playing him, it's fun to watch a guy make that kind of progress. Everybody knew he was a great player coming in. I think his confidence seems to be a lot better. I think that helps when you have people around you. Even Jefferson. They've got two elder statesmen on that team, too, that are very valuable to that team. Those two guys do a lot. Him and Cook are very instrumental in the success. Even Plumlee is coming on some. There's enough talent there. There's enough problems for us. But, you know, I've downplayed us a little bit because I'm not sure where we were. We were a little bit inconsistent. But Dawson, Trice and Valentine, they can play on a lot of teams around the country. Don't feel sorry for us, we've got some good players, and they're starting to play better. Our role players are starting to play a little bit better. Maybe not quite as talented, but big hearts. They proved their worth by what they've accomplished in these last 14, 15 games when our backs were a little bit against the wall. They know how to deal with pressure. Some of these guys have been in the elite game last year with a nine‑point lead in the second half. What we hoped would be a trip to the Final Four then and maybe a national championship. The President picks you, you're a little bit more odds‑on favorite, not with three ones and a seven seed. I've been a one seed and lost. Been a one seed and won. Been a five, six seed, got to the Final Four. Watched a friend of mine last year in Kevin Ollie not only beat us but a bunch of other teams to win it from a seven. I think we're in a day and age where that doesn't matter as much. Maybe it helps you in the first round. I think when you get here, I'm not going to use the underdog role. That would be disrespecting the program we built. I'm going to say that right now, we're not the nation's pick. I understand that, too. But I don't think we've been in most of this tournament. We're still standing. Q. Tom, I know you probably don't think too much about legacy while you're in the middle of another run. As you go deeper into your career, 20 years in now, do you think about what you created here? How much does a second national title, would that cement it? COACH IZZO: When you say 'deeper,' do you think I'm getting old? Q. 20 years is a long time. COACH IZZO: You were probably here before me or with me so that speaks volumes about yourself (laughter). You know, when you win a national championship, all you want to do is get back there. It's not like you say, Wow, I did that, wipe that off the bucket list. I told you many times the story about John Wooden when I first met him. Bill Walton said, You've won one, that's great, but John has won 10. There's a humbling effect to that. There's a motivating effect to that. I look at what Mike has done at Duke. Winning four, that's motivation for me. If I win another one, would I be satisfied with that, would it be a bigger part of the legacy? Not necessarily. When I step down, I'll worry about the legacy, how many we won. Right now, as I've said a million times, I want to be a part of the smaller fraternity. I want to get Michigan State to its third national championship, and maybe my personal program to a second national championship because fewer people have done that. It's harder to go back and get the second one. When you've got people from Johnny Green era on up that I know of that are so excited about a chance for our school to get a third one, I think all those people would take some ownership in that accomplishment. That's really why I'm still here. For me, I swear to you it's not as big a deal. It was a great question and probably a great answer by Billy. You want to win them for the people that have supported you. I look around the room, some of you guys have been here since I was a GA here. In my humble opinion, the only way I can give back to what you did for me is to help take you to some place that very few people get to go. We're headed to one place. If we can make it to Monday night, we head to the ultimate place. Q. (No microphone.) COACH IZZO: Everybody but you, because I know you'll be watching the Tigers that night (laughter). Q. Nick Saban once said you were a football coach who happens to coach basketball. I'm wondering if you can expand on that a little bit? What has the influence of football been over the years? COACH IZZO: When Nick was here, we spent a lot of time together, recruiting, all kinds of things. Everybody knows I have a love for football, Mariucci and everything, Mark Dantonio and everything. There's a closeness. I have an appreciation for football because I think it's a less dramatized sport. One guy isn't so important, so to me it's maybe still one of the ultimate team sports. The physical nature of it, I've said all along, I think you have to be mentally and physically tough to win championships. It doesn't always mean smash‑mouth tough, but I think you've got to be tough. This team is not as tough as a lot of them I've had. But, boy, about the middle of February, beginning of February, I don't know, Popeye might have shown up, given us some spinach because we became a lot tougher than we were to rise us up to average I think in this program. But making progress. I've learned a lot from football, back when video wasn't as big in basketball. I learned a lot from football. I have great respect. They have a week to prepare. So they never leave a stone unturned, if you ask me. Sometimes we have a day to prepare. I try to take that same procedure to make sure that we don't leave a stone unturned. That's why basketball coaches are tougher than football, we get it done in a day, it takes them a week. Q. How gratifying is it to have you and Dantonio mentioned on everybody's list now? COACH IZZO: It means the world to me because the guys that were here with me when I was a GA, the day I got the job, I dreamed of football and basketball winning a national championship together. We're not there yet, but we're taking closer steps to it. It's so much fun. In Division II, you all pull for everybody. When I was at Northern, nobody had any money. It was just survival. Sometimes in Division I, it's the Hatfields against the McCoys in the same athletic department because everybody is fighting for that. I've been blessed since I've been here. I don't know if it was George Perles, Doug Weaver, Mark Hollis, Nick Saban, Mark Dantonio, any of the other great coaches that have been around here, but there's always been a connection with me and them. You have a lot of issues in these jobs on a daily basis, and it's fun to have somebody you can look across the street and call that really, truly understands what you're going through. I think that's what I've enjoyed the most. To keep the department healthy, to grow a university, like John Hannah wanted it grown, where athletics was a front porch. It's not the most important thing here, it's just one of the areas that we can be seen. To have it done with class and dignity and to have it done with success, it's important. I just am a believer that as big a basketball fan as I am, you need football. If they can coexist like they have at a few places, only a few, but if they can coexist and exceed expectations, now you got another memory maker, you got another time when you're doing something that most people aren't doing. Mark was there the other night when we got back. He's been very supportive. I've been very supportive of him. We better watch out, one of these days it might happen. Q. Tom, going back to the personnel matchups, Jahlil being 6'11", do you think he's the most imposing player you've come across? Could you look back at some of the guys you've gone against and is Jahlil up there in terms of dominant bigs? COACH IZZO: Jahlil is a dominating big who can score on the block. Even in the 20 years I've been here, post players in general, every five man wants to be a four man and shoot threes. Jahlil is who Jahlil is. He's comfortable in his own skin. He wants to be on the block. He can score on the block. He can put on the floor a little bit. He's got intelligence. Great kid. There's so many pluses with Jahlil Okafor. He was well‑coached in high school. He's got the whole package. Played against good competition. As they say in football more, he's a guy that puts on his shorts the same way. We're not going to defend him one‑on‑one necessarily, but we're not going to put four guys on him and leave those other three guys open to shoot threes either. We'll probably have a very sophisticated defense to guard him. When they throw it in, we're going to pray that he doesn't make those shots and then we'll call it a day. It's not going to be anything magical. We're going to do our job. We got two guys in there that you can say didn't do a decent job on the first team. It depends what you look at. I've seen some teams that have beat them and he's gotten 30. I've seen some games where they beat the team and he's gotten eight. It's about how do you win the game. A lot of coaches have different theories on that. Do you give the superstar 30 and make sure nobody else gets any? Do you clamp down on the superstar and try to let other people beat you? They got enough weapons around them that I think we got to clamp down on five guys and then probably on Mike. We got to guard six guys in this tournament. Q. Not to project what might happen, but you and Bo, Wisconsin, are both in this Final Four. What does that say about the Big Ten? I think back to when Bo first came in the league, the battles you had, how things have evolved. COACH IZZO: It's been interesting. I'll talk on the second one first, you'll probably have to remind me of the first one. We talked yesterday. There were some battles. They ruined our 53‑game home winning streak. Never forgive him for that. At the same time I've had some battles back when we were both in the Final Four when he wasn't at Wisconsin. But him being a Division III guy, me being a Division II guy, there was always some respect there. Then we got on the board together, on the NABC. I guess our friendship grew. I'm sure if you asked him, I know if you asked me, I saw some of the things his players said, there's enormous respect for the two programs. Sure, we'd like to have an all Big Ten final. That would be awesome for both of us. But I think for the most part there's a friendship there. There's a respect there. I'm looking forward to watching them play and seeing how they do. For the Big Ten, Delaney has to be conference commissioner of the century.  When you look at our football this year, what the Big Ten did there in the bowl games, the wins, the national championship, getting two teams in the Final Four here, what's gone on there. Didn't Ohio State win the wrestling? A lot of sports doing pretty well. So could be for a lot of reasons, but I think right now I'm proud of the Big Ten, being a Big Ten guy, for what we've accomplished this year and the number we got in. I think they were deserving. The seedings, who knows. Wisconsin has always been a one seed in my mind, and had a tough route going through Arizona. Now they've got an even tougher one going through Kentucky. But if there's a team that can do it, I think they're built for that. Q. You mentioned the toughness issue as the season went along. Could you have imagined your team playing this kind of defense given how you felt about it back in December? Is there some specific thing, when you mention a guy like Trice, that guys are doing now that maybe exceed expectations? COACH IZZO: I've always had some lock‑down defenders from the Charlie Bell, Antonio Smith days to the early ones. I look at a Shannon Brown, a Travis Trice, guys like that could just lock people up. People couldn't score. Anagonye. Funny, he called from Spain today. He was a phenomenal defender. Drew Naymick. I've always had a couple lockdown defenders. Dawson is the closest thing to a lockdown defender. The rest of our team, kind of the open‑door policy. We made some commitments to go back to how we used to play as far as being in gaps, doing our work early, helping each other, almost having five guys guarding the ball and the other guys. Really what our rules are is, every guy's got to guard his man and somebody else's. The team slowly bought into that. When some of our defensive stats came out in the Big Ten, I'm coaching the team, but I was amazed by the stats. I kept saying to my staff, How? You watch us, we would be pretty solid, would be the best world. We didn't turn people over a lot. We didn't do a lot of things like that, but we were pretty solid. So we've evolved into a different kind of defense. We're not a smash‑mouth defensive team. We're not a team that gets after you as hard. But we are pretty solid, pretty steady. I think all of a sudden Trice has gotten better defensively. Valentine improved a ton from last year to this year. He doesn't get enough credit. I'm always putting him on the best player. Then Tum Tum brought some of that energy in at the point. Forced Bryn to play harder. Former players are calling me back telling me about Bryn Forbes' defense. I tell Bryn that, even he's shocked. It's been great that guys have bought into something. I think that's what they've bought into: the team concept, the defense, helping one another, knowing they're not good enough individually but collectively they've done an incredible job. Q. You guys get so much attention as you go along in the tournament. When you get on that bus to head to Indy, that door finally closes, what is that ride like? What do you anticipate it will be like? COACH IZZO: Been on it before. It's fun. It's a good ride. You know, probably won't be quite as exciting as the one to Detroit. Seemed like all the way down there there were people honking, waving, doing things with you. It's that moment when you realize that all the falderal that goes along with this, all the great media coverage we get, the fan adulation that we get, all of a sudden it's just you and them. That's the way it's going to be on the floor. When you think of all the excitement, there will be 60,000, 70,000 people in the arena that night, it's still like you feel like you're on an island by yourself. It's kind of a surreal feeling. I'll talk to the players before we leave tomorrow. I'm a big believer that you've got to win the game sometimes as the journey goes. You don't get ready on game night and win it. You don't burn yourself out with all these thoughts throughout the week. As I always said, you dream about things. Then what you try to do is, What can I do to make those dreams come true? Just making sure that my guys are like me, you dream good. You don't have to have a nightmare. You don't want to do that. You dream good and then you figure out what you can do to accomplish those things. There's nothing better than be your team, when they've gone through a journey like we have. I won't say people didn't appreciate or respect us. I mean, there has been no disrespect in this whole deal. Was I happy to be a seven seed? I wasn't for my program, not for my team necessarily. I mean, I knew we did some good things, I knew we did some bad things. Do I understand are people disappointed in us sometimes? I do. Do I understand the reasons, when we had injuries and different things? I did. I understand fans are fans. But we've gotten great respect. We've gotten a lot of people pulling for us. I couldn't ask for more people to be in Syracuse than were there. I think it's going to be crazy down in Indy, even though we're close to Kentucky, they happen to travel maybe better than anybody in the world. I think we'll be well‑represented. I think the ride down, I'm hoping that those guys appreciate the journey, especially the seniors, the work they put in, to give their families an opportunity to witness something that they may never witness again. It was interesting. When Gary and AP called back right after the game, they called. I could just tell that they're making a lot of money, they're playing in the NBA. That's what they want. I think they'd give their right arm to be in Indy this weekend. That's what's cool about college sports. Q. I wonder how you view Duke these days. I know there's mutual admiration between the programs and Krzyzewski. Duke gets elevated to a stratosphere by everybody, certainly something you would like to knock off. How do you view the aura of it? COACH IZZO: Well, there is an aura to it, but it's been earned. It's hard to downplay. I mean, when I say I idolize what he's done, I don't idolize them right now. I think we've done a lot, too. But it's amazing in the 35, I don't know exactly how many years he's been there, but other than those first three, four years, the consistency that he's done it with, the guys that he's done it with. I just respect that. There's nothing wrong with respecting your opponent. I don't sit there and just look up to it, but I use it as a measuring stick every day. If I'm tired, it's a goal to try to compete with the schools that have done it the best in your era. That's how I look at Duke. I mean, I think they've done it the right way. I think they've done it a consistent way. I keep using that word because I think that word, I think he's held his players accountable, I think that our two nationalities, the only difference, I think we're both incredibly demanding. He, being a little older, has figured out keep your emotions a little bit more off your sleeve. Mine are on my sleeve. Although I watched him last weekend, his were on his sleeve, too. So I think competitive people have the same standards. How do I view him? I view him in high regard. I just don't want the officials to do that (laughter). Q. You had emotional wins at the end of the last few weekends.  Some of the Wisconsin players were talking about the difference between this year and last year. How do you get them back up with that sort of desperation and determination this week? COACH IZZO: That was the first thing I addressed when we arrived home. Had a meeting in the locker room. I've been there before where I thought our first year getting to the Final Four was the goal. When you have a year like this, it was almost as surprising as that first one in '99. So I addressed that immediately to say, you know, when you have a season, you have to be realistic. I don't like coaches that say, We're going to win the national championship. They have a 5‑25 team. I think then you lose credibility with your own players. The job is to be honest with your players but change your goals as you accomplish them. This was one of our goals. I think this is the advantage hopefully to having me, Dwayne Stephens, and Mike Garland there, because we've all been to more than a couple of them. Reminding them that, you know, this was a major step, but there's still some steps to go. I told them, I said, I know it was an emotional win today. I know having your families there, there were so many of them there, was incredible. But I guaranteed them that if they're playing Monday night, their families are there, it will blow the last one away. That's how I tried to look at it. Q. People have pointed out that the other three teams in Indy have combined to win about 94% of the time all year, seven losses between them. You guys lost 11 games. You are a seventh seed. How do your players, now that they've ascended to this place, how do they view themselves in comparison to who they're up against? How do you want them to view themselves in this environment? COACH IZZO: Well, I'm not sure, but I would say that over the years of the seven Final Fours I've been in ‑ where is my SID when I need him ‑ I would think 90% of the time, we've had the most losses. Some of it is because that's the way we are, but some of it is how we scheduled early, pick up two, three, four loss, when other teams, especially back 12, 13 years ago weren't scheduling like we did. I think what I look at is the preparation. Everybody says, Why aren't you doing something in March? I said, Really we did it in November and December. For a couple of people in this room that have battled with me in a positive way over how we schedule, at times I want to say, What am I doing? Think about the Tournament of Champions, think of that right now, there were four teams in it: Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and Michigan State. Three of those team are playing in the Final Four. We got our feet wet there. We realized what we weren't good enough at. It gave us a barometer to try to figure out who we are. We played Kansas. Then we played that team that wasn't even ranked, Notre Dame, something like that, played them to an overtime game at Notre Dame. Some people were upset about that around here. They turned out to be pretty good, too. I think even in the Big Ten, there's some teams. We had a unique year this year. I blame Michigan State. We were a marquee team even though not picked as high. You lose to a Texas Southern, Purdue lost to somebody, Indiana lost to somebody, Michigan lost to somebody.  That isn't the norm. I think it hurt our league. Somebody said, They haven't beat a ranked team. Well, we didn't play many. I think Maryland was ranked when we played them. But we didn't play many ranked teams. It was just one of those years where there were some losses early by Big Ten people, and there weren't as many of those games. We only played Wisconsin once in the regular season. So I don't look at this as anything bad. This team's been battle‑tested. When I say 'battle‑tested' I mean Dawson and Trice, they played on an aircraft carrier, I mean real battle‑tested. This team played last year to coming back from the dead when we had all those injuries, went on that late run in the Big Ten tournament, then in the NCAA tournament, just came shy of going to a Final Four. I think last year, deservingly good enough to be picked to have a chance to win a national championship. So we played so many good people over Trice and Dawson's four years, or Valentine, Costello's three years, that this is where that part helps, and then those guys I keep talking about, those former players that have all been through it all, when you get to some like a Steve Smith, a Magic, that have been through it all the way to the Olympics, they're talking to your guys, they got enough knowledge and information, I think they can handle the stage. I think what we've got to handle, what I haven't done a very good job of, figuring out how to beat Duke. Everyone knows it's an 8‑1 record, I should say 1‑8. Whatever it is, it's not good enough. So I've had different teams. That's maybe something I've got to do a better job of and that's something I'll do this week. Q. You like coach's sons. What is the value of having a big brother around who is an aspiring coach, what has that done for Denzel? COACH IZZO: I heard Earvin call himself a big brother the other day. You don't mean that. You mean Drew. I think Drew Valentine has brought a lot to our program. He played in a good program in Oakland, was a solid, good player. Been fun for me. Coached Carlton. Carlton is harder on both of them than I am. Drew had to do something I had to do. I had had an instantaneous relationship with him because I played on a team and then I became an assistant on that team and coached the guys that I played with. That's difficult. That was the first lecture I gave him. You're going to now coach guys, some of them are older than you are. That's hard to do. He's done an incredible, incredible job. He's just been great. I think it's because he was brought up a coach. I did something different. I listened to Jud. I recruited two coaches' sons. I hired a coach's son player in Drew. I got the best of all worlds. Q. We've seen Travis and Bryn and their play elevate, the senior status. What have you noticed about the way they're grooming the young guys? Describe what you're seeing. COACH IZZO: Draymond Green was here this summer. He told me at the end of the summer, You got some good leaders. He was talking about Trav and 'Zel. He said the best one might be Tum. Make sure they mentor him. There was something that happened about seven or eight years ago now where first practice, Draymond got into it with Goran Suton, as only Draymond could do. It got a little more heated than normal. So I watched. Wasn't going to break anything up. Like hockey, let's have a fight and see who wins. I sat there and watched them arguing and everything. Suton after practice went up and grabbed him and took him aside. I didn't have any idea what he said to him. But Draymond was being the jerk. Suton did what a senior should do. Those two became like this. I don't think of it this way, but in a small way for a small period of time, Tum took Travis' job. Travis Trice has been so good with that kid. They room on the road. So good, it's amazing. Of all the people, Branden Dawson, who to me doesn't have that same personality, he's taken Marvin under his wing the whole time. I keep reminding those freshmen every day, You better appreciate those guys. You better appreciate them a lot because not everyone does this. This is some of the things that have separated this year's team from top to bottom. There is a, I don't know if you can use the word, but there is a true love for one another. That is a powerful, powerful thing. So I'm appreciative of those upperclassmen. Even go far as Costello, he was starting early. I started Schilling. Some of it was because of foul trouble and different things. But they've kind of helped out the people that are even threatening their own jobs. I'm just not sure in our society this day and age that's normal. But for this team it's normal and it's probably what's taken a decent to good basketball team, and on Saturday night going to play in the greatest weekend in sports in our country. So, yeah, I'm pretty proud of them, pretty excited about it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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