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MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 15, 2008

Tom Izzo

COACH IZZO: Well, you know, I can't believe another season is here, and it seems even more difficult or different that we're bringing up basketball during such an important football weekend.
Mark and I were just talking here, I just talked to Mark D'Antonio earlier, it's probably been one of the more exciting years that we've had here in a while, and hopefully our basketball the last time we had a great football season and a good basketball team was in '99, 2000.
So I put that pressure on Mark and he put it back on me, and I think it's a good way to start off the season. To close-up from last season, we lost two key players, and Drew Neitzel is playing over in Germany, and of course Drew Naymick is playing in Poland. Apropos, apropos -- watch your Polish jokes, is that what you said? What the hell's that mean? (Laughter).
But you know I think we are going to miss those guys, they were a fifth-year senior and fourth-year starter. One did a lot of the dirty work, and one even though I wouldn't say had the year that I thought he would have, he might have drawn a lot of people to him which created some openings for some other guys that are going to have to earn it on their own right now.
As we said here, and talked about our preseason hype for basketball, most people have us in the top ten, 15 anyway, and I do think it's deserving and I do think it's a privilege and I do think it's respect for the program, and I think all of those things are positive things that is going to benefit us. You add to that our schedule, Mark Hollis and I were just talking, and sometimes you do get confused on what you do here. I always blame the media for that or the fans, and sometimes do I, too.
As Matt continues to come up with more and more things that have been accomplished -- when Mark Hollis and I started and I just became the head coach and him as an assistant AD at the time, we talked about what we had to do, and scheduling was a big part of that, and filling the stands was a big part of that, bringing teams in was a big part of that. And when you bring in three of the four final teams, champions that have played at home, I think it tells a lot that we have gone out and tried to do what we wanted to do way back when. With Maryland being the only team that we didn't play here, and we played them in every preseason tournament and we play them again this year in a preseason tournament.
So I think the schedule is tougher than I even thought it would be when we made it because I thought North Carolina would lose some players. I didn't know that Georgetown or a couple of teams that are in the Orlando tournament would be in it. But I also think it's right for this team, one way or another, we are going to either understand that we are not quite as good as everybody has picked us; we are as good as everybody picked us, or maybe we are a little better than everybody picked us.
I think we'll know that early in the year with enough to hopefully regroup; or, build on to whatever happens by the middle of December.
Expectations being high, I think with a few more veterans with a little bit more depth, the quality depth of players that have played, I think we'll be able to handle those expectations. I don't think there's any question that this will be one of our more athletic teams. I do think we'll have some depth, especially around the perimeter. I think we'll have experience with guys that have started maybe coming off the bench. And yet, we have some questions, as you know. Delvon is still a big question, even though, knock-on-wood, he's performed very well. He seems to be having no problems as far as the injury goes. It's now still just a matter of what the time off will do as we start getting into real practice time.
And here is a big key, because he's a guy that I thought coming into the season, would either be a key contributor or starter and I thought that since the day we recruited him. I've been very pleased with the other two freshmen, Draymond Green, as most of you have seen, as lost a lot of weight. I think he is rivaling Chris Berman right now in his TV ads, and if I could get one for Draymond now, I would do that, because he's done an incredible job of slimming down in a short period of time. Now we have to follow that up with his conditioning.
And Kalin Lucas has been every bit what I thought he would be, and even shooting it better than I thought he would. So our freshman class is fairly solid, and one that I think is going to be great some day, and hopefully it will give us maybe a starter and some depth this year. And if that is the case, it will mean Dahlman is healthy, and that will really benefit this team.
As far as personnel goes, you know, with the rest of our guys, you know, our sophomore class is important, and I told my guys that I still think a big key to this season was, one, the health of Delvon Roe; two the maturity of the guys that played a lot last year; and maybe three, the growth of two guys in particular, Chris Allen and Durrell Summers. I think those two guys got to make up for Neitzel in a way. I think they have to help us so that we can be more versatile and so that we can go small and move Raymar around and play three, even four guards at one time.
I think they have to be able to shoot the ball. But the biggest problem they are going to have is they are going to have to be able to defend some, especially if we play two of them at the same time. You can hide one person. It's sometimes hard to hide two.
So that class, when you add in Austin Thornton, who is a sophomore, but maybe really a freshman, but he brings some toughness and a very good shooter to that class, and I think we are going to be pretty solid there. And yet, whether we are great, will determine on how those guys perform once we start practicing. We've had good summers, and yet they have had no pressure on them and now the pressure starts.
In the junior class, I think you know, I look at a guy like Raymar, and I think he's made big strides this summer as far as his game. I still think all of our perimeter guys have to get a little better with the ball and he still has to improve in that area, even though he's improved a lot, I think he's improved his shooting a lot and continued to improve his three point shooting, are still issues that we deal with in Dahlman, we are looking at a guy who probably if, as a coach, you look back on a year, and you say, did you give him a fair shot; and I guess this would be one guy that I would question whether I gave him the shot he deserved.
Now, you know, the injury the year before hurt him a little bit because once he came out of the lineup, he had trouble getting back in. He has put on 15, 20 pounds, as Herzog has, but you know, he still is a player that played pretty well a lot of times as a freshman. He still is a leading scorer in the history of the State of Minnesota, and he still has to improve and maybe get a little stronger and aggressive if he's going to help us. But at 6-6, 6-7, I have not ruled him out.
As I told our team, every media person I've ever talked to; are you going to have too many players, how are you going to balance it, and it always works out. One way I think is get competition back in the practices, which I think is very crucial and important and hopefully we'll get done this year and hopefully Herzog in the same breath, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about him, because of this fact: The kid has gone through a lot. You know, he's trying to gain some weight.
But in fairness to him, he's had kind of a -- I won't say neurological, but he's had kind of a nervous reaction to things that really drained his energy quickly, and that has been more the problem than anything else. He works his tail off. He's about as hard of working big man, most big guys play because they are 6-10 or up, and he plays because of the love of the game and that he really wants to get better.
So I would refrain from ever thinking that maybe his lack of progress that he's had so far has been because of any other reason than things he cannot control, and the things that he can control, finally, last week, he started putting on weight after two years of waiting, and he is progressing. He sprained his ankle two weeks ago and he's been out and probably won't start practicing until maybe Friday or Saturday or might be after the weekend.
But he is making some progress. A little slower than I would like and a little slower than you would like, but not because of lack of commitment or working at it. It's been for other reasons.
As far as our senior class goes, when you look at who has been the surprise in the class, it's been Marquise Gray. Again, I don't mince words. I don't think that it's been a disappointing career if you look at the big picture that he has not accomplished what I thought he could accomplish. I said the first couple of years that I think it was injury-related and then it was understanding-related, maybe not understanding how good of condition that you have to be in, and maybe thinking you were in better shape than you were and that's created some problems.
Last year he worked on his shooting, and this year I think finally he's in the best shape he's ever been in. He has had maybe as good of workouts as anybody so far, and now we'll see what happens when that translates into practice, also.
And Idong Ibok, I think improvement has definitely been there. It's now finding a niche and a role for him which has to be more than three or four minutes a game. But in doing what he does well, he's still a terrific shot blocker. He is becoming a better and better rebounder, and I think he's catching the ball better, which has been his problem and an issue that we've had to deal with.
And in closing it out, Goran Suton has probably had as good of a summer as anybody, and like Raymar, as far as improving his game. I think his shot is much, much better and his body is much different than it was and his conditioning is better. We have to remember that even though I'm not always satisfied, and I think he gets to be one of the talk show guys that are hit on, the guy averaged almost nine points and nine rebounds a game. I don't know, Quinn, what is the deal on that? Do we double-digits, ten and ten, there can't be two or three people that are double-digits in points and rebounds in the country, are there?
Put it this way: There are not many guys that have done that. So what he's accomplished and what he's done is probably maybe unfairly criticized because to do that, you've got to be doing a lot more than maybe I give him credit for and maybe you give him credit for but I do think his commitment to the game has improved a lot.
And that brings us to two guys now that are kind of quarterbacking this team, Kalin Lucas, who probably had the best summer of anybody. He competed against some of the best point guards in the country at camp and is doing tremendously. Probably improved his leadership skills, his ability to push and talk to people, as much as anybody we've had here in a while that has gone from kind of quiet to -- he's still got some quietness to him. But I think we asked him to improve in that area, and I think he's taken that to heart and has done a very good job, along with the other skills, and as we all know, he's lightning quick.
So I've been pleased with the decision making so far. I've been pleased with his shooting, which I think is much improved. But probably to become the player he needs to be, I think his progress vocally is as good as any.
And Travis Walton, unlike last year when he missed the four months, he, too, is shooting the ball better, but make no mistake about it; that's not where his cup of tea is going to be for us. He's still going to be the utility guy that can play three positions that can probably guard four positions and has to be the heart and soul with his toughness, with his leadership, and now instead of becoming a complete liability offensively, I think he'll be a situational scorer that will be able to make shots when open instead of just passing them up.
So our strengths, in a nutshell should be our athletic ability, our depth. And you know, maybe our ability to have more players that can make decisions. Our question mark, as always are going to be leadership; until it's proven, always going to be toughness, until it's proven. It was interesting again, it's been so much fun to watch mark and his team and what they have accomplished and I keep a close eye on it because I think things that coaches talk about in the off-season or the times that Mark and I, or Mark -- two Marks is getting confusing. But when you talk about things that you have to do to build a program, it's kind of funny because it doesn't matter what your personality is. There still are certain things that you have to accomplish.
You know, one of his today was: We have to make sure we continue to stay tough and not get soft. And how do you get soft? You get soft by people patting you on the back and you get soft by forgetting where you are and you get soft by maybe renting a spot instead of building the program. And that's something I've got to look at now. You get soft by having a nice locker room and not appreciating it.
And so I think the toughness thing is still going to be a question mark until it's proven. I think Delvon, health and the Chris Allen and Durrell Summers' development, I thought those were three questions I had down, the leadership and toughness in those three guys.
As far as the league goes, and then I'll open up to some questions, no question, Purdue is everybody's pick, it seems. Ohio State will still bounce back. They have incredible talent and another great big man coming in.
But when you look at the strength of a league, it's always measured at top, but I think two teams that have not been as good in our league and might have their best teams in years will be Northwestern and Penn State. I think both teams have all five starters back and I think both teams, Penn State has really at the end of the year played a lot better, and I could see them being there.
I think, you know, Purdue, Ohio State and Wisconsin, everybody figures they are going to be there and then it comes to four teams that I think are really going to make the difference between wins and loses the conference championship. Michigan should be much better, another year under a new coach.
Minnesota I think will be better, even though they lost a couple of guys, I think they got more of his type of guys. Illinois had two great players sitting out, and I think that team will be improved some.
And Iowa, I don't know as much because I don't know what they have had. On paper, it doesn't like they are where they were. They beat us last year, that's all I've got to know, and they are very, very well coached and those four groups, you've got a lot of very good coaches and question marks. And yet, maybe the best-coached team could be Indiana. I have a lot of respect for Tom. I think he's done a great job. He's got the biggest challenge. There's no question that that program has been decimated for a variety of reasons, and yet he's going to coach them and they are going to be as well-coached as anybody.
And so the league, Purdue should be a favorite. They have earned that. We should be right up there. I think we've earned that. Wisconsin has proven year-in and year-out that they can be and Ohio State I think might be as talented as anybody, just a younger talent.

Q. Do you see Suton trying to be more of a threat to score from the low post?
COACH IZZO: I'm hoping it is, and I'm hoping it will be. I think one thing, a couple of areas we have to improve on, you look at what we have done, and some are mind-boggling if you look at some of the stats Matt pulled out. But we have led this league five straight years in field goal percentage. But sometimes we are not getting enough shots.
We have not gotten to the free throw line enough, if you ask me, and part of that will be guys like Suton who is a 75, 80 percent free throw shooter, and the turnovers, which when you look at the big stats, it's really interesting.
As I listened to the Michigan game, you know, where the old turnover for a touchdown happened and you talk about basketball where the difference between the highest-turnover team and being the lowest-turnover team is usually about two; where this year I think it was a little more but usually two turnovers a game which seems like nothing. You always have to remember it could be a three that you could have got, and you're going to get some kind of basket, it could be four-, five-, six-point swings.
How we took care of the ball, it was not ridiculous, but with us running a lot more this year, we have to take care of it more, and I think we have got personnel to do that. And then we can get it in to Suton, who I think has to be versatile. I think he's going have to be inside and outside, and I think you'll see us posting Morgan up this year, one thing that's definitely going to happen. I think you'll see Dahlman and Marquise doing a lot of that.
But we are going to post, and we might even post Durrell. We are going to try to take advantage. Guys are going to be more multi-dimensional hopefully getting back to the Petersons and Richardsons playing inside and outside, Hudson, even Grainger (ph) who could do both. He now has to be versatile to do both, but get to the damn foul line is going to be a big key for us.

Q. When you talk about leadership and the importance of that, for the team to be successful this year, does Kalin really need to make this his team, are you looking for that from him?
COACH IZZO: There's a lot of pressure on Kalin. He and Travis are very close, and I think Travis has done an unbelievable job of taking him under his wing considering Kalin took his position, if you want to look at it that way. I don't totally look at it that way, because he, you know, we just moved Travis all around.
He still plays a significant amount of minutes, but I think sometimes, I don't care what sport you're in, your quarterback has to be one of your best leaders, and has to take over the team on the floor. I think sometimes Kalin last year was a little bit shy in doing that, because of his respect for Travis, and all I've been trying to tell him is first of all, it doesn't hurt to have two leaders.
But I think he has to take over some of that, yeah, I really do and I think he's ready to do that and I don't think that's going to cause any problems with anybody else, either.

Q. This isn't to throw away last season or a knock against the two seniors, but is this the sort of team you've been waiting to get your hands on the last couple of years to really start to mold this thing and see what you can do? And you talk about the high expectations, you had those before last season and they fell short; why is this team different?
COACH IZZO: Well, I think what fell short last year was our Big Ten performance. I'm not ready to say the season fell short when you still play one of the toughest schedules and you win 27 games. And I'm not saying that against you. I'm saying that, though, it is hard to keep expectations and reality of what goes on in college basketball. I do -- I just read an article that my staff showed me where they had us overrated along with pretty good other people, Duke and somebody else, and the comment was, you know, we've lost eight games double digits and a couple. So I've got to put this plug in, that you'd better realize that if we are going to play good people, we are going to lose more games than most. And Matt has done an unbelievable job on some things that you'll see shortly in the next week or two, that illustrate that.
And you know, I try to look back at last year, I'm never going to forgive those two games at Iowa and Penn State ever, and I'm not sure I will the Wisconsin game in the tournament either many all of a sudden you're 30 wins, three seed and this and that and that's ifs, ifs and ifs, but I think we played good enough to be in that position.
I think if I looked at last year, maybe certain players didn't handle the pressure, maybe it was trying to blend our youth, but I like this team, because we have depth. I like this team because we are athletic. I think we are going to be able to run more and I think we'll be able to pressure more defensively and I think it will be even more exciting to watch.
But I have to guard against 27 wins, fifth-most in the history of the school being an average year and that's not a knock to you. Just 27 wins with the kind of schedules we play.
If anybody thinks we are going undefeated this year, we are probably not. That's a bad thing for a coach to say because you're looking at the negatives but I'm trying to make sure everybody understands that what we do is not the same as what everybody else does. And you can blame my athletic director for that. That will be no problem. And he would probably take it because we have talked for 12 years, 13 years on what we think we have to do to get Michigan State to where it needs to be.
And it could be different in basketball and football, it could be different in basketball than hockey and there's different reasons that you have to do different things. And sometimes what happened with that is when you play a lot of tough people early, is that a reason that you have some drop-offs sometimes, you know, we had a letdown those two games and I should be held responsible for that because it really changed the season and put us into position too early in the Big Ten season where we were almost out of the race.
We bounced back and probably might have won one more game, but you know, we had some tough close games at Purdue, Penn State, Iowa, that all of a sudden, it's a big difference on whether you're playing for a conference championship, and I think that's the way we're trying to approach it this year. We have to finish games. We have to win games we are supposed to win.
This year we have to finish games and win games we are supposed to win. Yeah, I do like this team, but I liked last year's team. I really did. I thought that we would do a little better job with -- you know, we didn't get Drew off to the start he needed maybe. And maybe it was the way it was covered. Maybe it was the pressure. And when you think about the year that we all expected him to have and what he had, he probably said 27 wins is remarkable. And that's no pressure on him. He wanted -- and I talked about it the other day, but yeah I'm looking forward to this kind of team because I think we'll be smaller.
You know I did not like playing big, but that's the only way I could play for a couple of years so, that part of the question could be completely true. This way we have versatility and we can play big, but we can play real small and be good enough.
I'm looking forward to it and I think that's why the schedule, and the other thing that is a little different, and you do have to keep this in mind is we are one of two conferences that are playing 18 conference games now. So those wins and loss totals is going to change a little bit for a lot of people when you look at the big picture.

Q. With the Final Four in Detroit, do you even allow yourself to dream of what that would be like, or is that tricky to do in October?
COACH IZZO: No, not tricky at all. I always do that. I did that last year and the year before; if you don't dream it, you don't achieve it. I always dream it. I always figure this program should be in a position where we have a chance, a chance. We went a lot of years here we had no chance.
So, yeah, I dream about it, not more than every night, but you know, I really do. And I -- but I think I'm mature enough and been through enough -- I'm really not mature enough, but I've been through enough that I understand how good you've got to be and how lucky you've got to be and how the stars have to line up.
Whenever you consider your greatest day as a coach here, the weekend you were in Detroit, and you know, play to get to the Final Four that year, whenever you consider that a bigger weekend than the one when you won the National Championship, I think it states how important the family atmosphere, the hometown, the feel of the State of Michigan, all of those things are just so important to me, our program.
I've loved the fact, and not because he's here, but I think Mark deserves credit, too, that you know, I listen to Dantonio's press conference after the game, and they talk in the same way about the family atmosphere. Well, this gives you a chance to have one that is kind of a real big party.
So I don't want our guys thinking about the Final Four, but I hope every damn one of them goes to sleep every night and dreams about it, because that's what you're supposed to do. If you're program is in a position, that's what you're supposed to do. If you think you can just get there, shame on you. But if you don't dream about it, shame on you.

Q. Delvon is looked at as the missing ingredient in getting back to a Final Four and winning a championship; is that too much pressure?
COACH IZZO: It's too much to put on a freshman that's gone through what he's gone through. It's not too much to put on a freshman of his caliber, meaning both physically and mentally. This kid has got the whole package. He's smart enough. He's an incredible worker. And he's talented enough. Nine months off, as Magic said two and a half weeks ago when he was here watching a work-out: "You know, myself or Michael could not take nine months off and be the same player."
The hard thing is I'll have to make some tough decisions early; do you go with him if he's healthy and let him fail a little bit, let him go through his growing pains a little bit. We don't have one of those schedules where he could still do it and still one, so some of that might be costly. I do have a lot of faith in this kid. I just have no idea how you respond to that. If you looked at it realistically, you know, whether it be NBA guys that have called or other guys, it's going to take some time.
When I look at that kid and watch him work out for 40 minutes three days a week, I say, I think he can speed the process. But as we start going now to move to two and a half hours, day after day after day, so many questions will be answered in the next two weeks. I said, phase one would be after the two or three weeks we practiced, and I've been very pleased with that progress with him. Now the next one will be can you go day-to-day to day and there's some banging and physicalness and you can pick up things. I think those things will be answered the next couple of weeks.

Q. I remember when you used to complain to media writers or whatnot, you felt that it affected your program; how much are you re-invigorated by the presence of Mark and the other Mark and by the football program being where you think it should be again; has that reinvigorated you in your job?
COACH IZZO: You just asked a question about, you really like this team. For me, it's way bigger than that. I do think -- and I don't think it's the fault of anybody. No, I take that back. I think there was some fault in it in general.
But when you go through the five ADs and the five football coaches and you love your school and you love the school and athletic department and football as much as I do, you know, this is invigorating.
I feel like Mark and I talked about this when we lived together back in the days where he was getting in trouble and I was straighter than an arrow and then getting Mark Dantonio back and being a very, very, very small but a part of his hiring, just at least being in it; and all the work that Mark Hollis did, I never have seen so many stats and so many things on so many different candidates. I mean, for both of us, we were 200 percent sure that when we went to Cincinnati that we had the right guy.
You know what, there's a lot of football left, guys, and some very tough games. If they lost them all, we've got the right guy. I mean, he gets it. He gets it. With the calls to me, he gets it; and with the recruiting we are doing together, he gets it, and what we are doing for Michigan State. So invigorating would be an understatement.
I had a chance to go to Indiana. I was supposed to be in California and speaking at a clinic and listening to the whole game on the way back from Northwestern, and it's fun to go around the town and fill your car up with gas and have people feeling good because his clichÃ©d statement was: You know, not resting him until there's rose petals or rose something on their cleats.
I'm not very good in poetry but it's apropos, you know, and I think like Finals Fours, I think we'll get this program, it's not there yet. So don't put the pressure on him. It's not there yet. But we'll get this program now where those are things that you can dream about, instead of, things that are dreams to me have to be realistic dreams. They can't be pie-in-the-sky dreams.
And I think just to have a football game like this this weekend, I mean, we are going to have every kid that we can get from three or four of the neighboring states. For once, the football game means more to me than Midnight Madness, for what I hope, because of the whole aura of things and having so many alums there to come back for this big game, that we can lump them all together and go from a win in hockey right over to our arena and get warmed up and make it a hell of a tailgate party, or arguably, I think, one of the biggest games in my career here. I don't know if it's the biggest, I haven't thought back, but definitely in the top three or four.
Yeah, it's invigorating, and it's invigorating to have Mark here because I think he believes what he says and I think he has a mission on where he wants to get. And I bet you, if you asked him the question, is he dreaming about the Rose Bowl or is he dreaming about a Final Four, is he dreaming about a frozen four, I bet he would say yeah. Because anybody that I think wants to get their program to a certain area, you have to dream it and then you've got to work for it and that's what we are all trying to do here.
What I like is we are all trying to do it together, and it has been disjointed for whatever reasons. But it's not disjointed, and there is a rallying cry that everybody is moving in the same direction. And there is no question that football still is the engine that drives that group of people. And I'm fine with that. And as I told him, if I can help him recruiting this weekend, doesn't want anybody in the locker room -- it's yeah, it's fun. It's fun and hopefully it will be good things.
But for me, for me, it's going to be good win or lose. For most people it won't be, because I feel comfortable that it's a four- or five-year progress, at least, to get this program back and anything that we can steal earlier and build towards, and sometimes that doesn't always come in wins when you're building as it did for me. We've got ourselves some excitement here and some reason to feel proud about who we are and what we are and where we're going.

Q. What do you think the odds are that Green redshirts, and if not, how do you plan on utilizing him?
COACH IZZO: I would have said two months ago they were like 99 to 1, odds were that he would, because he was not in good shape and not where he needed to be, not all his fault, either. I mean, he had a severe ankle injury last year that I think kind of hurt him throughout. In watching him now, I would say they are 1 to 99, and I do not plan on redshirting Draymond Green.
As I said, sometimes things change when practice starts. Some people get better and some people get worse. But Draymond Green has shown a lot of aggressiveness. He's shown some tenacity. He's got just as good of skills as I thought he'd have.
He is multi-dimensional and he can pass and shoot the ball. He's rebounded the ball much better than I thought he could. He's under-sized in some ways, but as he grows now into -- he knows how to play and he was well-coached in high school, and that's a big benefit to us.
So right now I have no interest or no thoughts of red-shirting Draymond Green, and I guess some of that could change but it would change more on his part, and I don't see that happening.

Q. In terms of leadership, you've always demanded a lot out of your players but you've always seemed to fall in love with the guys that demanded a lot out of you. Who are those guys, and do you have enough of them do you think right now? Obviously it's just mid-October, but is that something you're still searching for?
COACH IZZO: I'd have to say I'm still searching for it, you know, if I was really honest about it. And some of it is because it has not reared its head like I would like it to yet, but some of it is, I've probably been gone more this fall than ever, recruiting. Just felt like I had to be places and go places. You know, I think I missed one practice and that was for a death, not for recruiting.
But I'm just saying, as far as on the day-to-day stuff, I was gone a little bit more so, I don't know if I can evaluate that properly yet. I'm looking forward to seeing it and I've harped on it enough, and. I do think that they should be demanding of me and I should be demanding of them; and then we've got a hell of a marriage and everybody is on the same page; and I think that's what we are preaching and working for and when you interview the players, that's what you should be asking them.

Q. When you look at that last game last year against Memphis and you consider the lessons that you can take away from that moving forward, is that a case of a team being good and superior talent or a one- or two-year process or are they doing something stylistically that you as a program moving forward have to add just to?
COACH IZZO: I think you are asking a question that I'll decipher it for the rest of the people here. Systems, everybody thinks systems matter. And you are probably referring to their drive and kick kind of system. John Calipari said something interesting to me after the game. He called my hotel as we were leaving.
No. 1, at one time they had hit 19 out of 20 free throws. They had not done that in practice in their lives there. You do know that. They played very well. What I learned is to bring a disguise, because it's embarrassing to sit up there in front of 50,000 people and not have anywhere to go. So I've learned that.
But he said something to me that I thought was very interesting. He talked about the different offenses and everybody has got their different things, and he said, do you remember when Rose went out, and really, I didn't know Rose got hurt. During the game I didn't know, when he was out for a little while, he was out for six minutes, and I think he told me: We went on like a 17-0 run and that brought it down to I think 30 points, you know, it was that kind of issue, but took it from 32 down to 15 or 14 or something like that.
And I kind of said, yeah, I remember. He says, "My offense wasn't quite as good when he wasn't in there." And I think what he was saying is, you know, that he can tell a lot of people certain things, but personnel and players play the game. If there was one offense that was so good, everybody would use it. You know, you can go to your personnel a little bit, and that's true, but really whatever you run, if that talented team would have ran the flex or motion or drive-and-kick or kick-and-drive or the whatever they wanted to do, I think there was enough talent there where that team would have been successful.
They did play, as he even said, one of their best games against us. Might have been our poor defense. But Rose hits a couple of threes right off the bat, not a very good shooter and they make the 19 out of 20 free throws; they are an awful free throw shooting team. We, on the other hand, just look like we were in quicksand after playing arguably one of our better teams after arguably one of the hotter teams in the country.
So was it a disappointing loss? Yes, it was. It was almost good to get embarrassed if we are going to go down because we did not play very good, and it's a good reminder now that it's over that that's how things can happen when you get that deep in a tournament.
So yeah, I was disappointed, but I don't think it was necessarily what they did. I think it was what we didn't do and what they did do as far as making shots and making plays. It wasn't like they were driving and getting layups, but that had nothing to do with their offense; it had to do with us a little bit, too. They played good. We didn't play good. I wouldn't get carried away in a certain offense, because all that does is sell videotapes.

Q. Not trying to down play the 27 wins or the Finals Fours, but curious as a competitor, how much does it bother you to look up and see the last conference banner read 2001?
COACH IZZO: You know, it bothers me a lot. I would say that's one of the things that bothers me more than anything. You know, I'm realistic to know that we had our chances at a couple of them, 2002, 2003, especially the one in Wisconsin here.
You know, I said all along, it is to win championships, but you really, to have a great programme, I think, too, you've got to be put in a position where you're knocking on the door all the time. I think all but two years in the last ten, we've knocked on the door, and haven't won as many as I'd like to.
It's good, it gives me something to complain about, something to drive me nuts, something for me not to dream about, but have nightmares about. And you know, I really would like to get another banner up there. I would like to get another championship trophy in there. I keep saying, I would like to put ourselves in a position where each thing we win, we are separating ourselves from other teams out there; and to be one of ten, to be one of five, to be one of 40, you keep wanting to shrink the one-ofs. In the Big Ten, you know, I don't know how many Knight won, whoever, that is one of the things I would go after on a personal and on a program note.
Keeps me up at night but there's a lot of things that keep me up at night. This will be one more added to the list and maybe I'll name that dream Lisa, or that nightmare. And you might be deserving of both.

Q. You talked about Dahlman and you want him to be in the starting lineup, and he's kind of the chosen guy. Where does that leave Marquise if he does get in the starting lineup, and have you talked to him and what will his role be?
COACH IZZO: That job should be Marquise's to lose, or, or, it also could be like Travis a little bit where maybe you want some experience coming off and you don't want two or three freshmen together coming in at the same time depending on those other freshmen.
So I look more, I think everybody looks at starting. You would be crazy if you didn't want to start. But I think what we talk about a lot is are you playing minutes and are you playing significantly and who is playing during crunch time.
All of the players, I sat down with them yesterday. I've known Marquise since he was 14 or 15. He used to come up when he was a little runt, so I've known him for probably longer than anybody I've ever recruited. He's a unique guy. He's a guy that he's going to graduate this year, which is probably as big or bigger of an accomplishment than a lot of things we'll do this year and I think that's great. But I think he understands, he's kind of street smart and he understands that maybe he wasn't in good enough shape, or he didn't make basketball the priority like some of his fellow Flintstones.
And we talked about it long and hard, and you know, for everybody, the light goes on different times. I don't know what he'll do. I hate to go out on a limb, but I'm feeling more comfortable every day that he'll have the best year of his career here, and if that means he starts, that will be great. And if that means he's a sixth or seventh man and playing 20-some minutes a game that, will be great.
I think he'll play the amount of minutes he can play. I mean, it's still not in his DNA to be one of those guys like a Charlie Bell or Kalin Lucas who can run all day long, and no matter how golf shape he's in, I'm not sure that's in his DNA. But I do think he's grown a ton, and I think, and I say this gingerly, because there's nothing worse than telling you guys something and the exact opposite happens. But I really feel comfortable that he's going to have a good year, maybe a very good year.

End of FastScripts

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