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BIG TEN CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA DAYS

October 19, 2017

Tom Izzo

Madison Square Garden - New York, New York

THE MODERATOR: Now up is Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo.

COACH IZZO: It's great to be here in New York. I mean, this is the mecca of basketball. It always has been. And I think it always will be. So that's pretty exciting and it's good to be here with a good team coming back.

Last year we went through some growing pains with those freshmen. Gave me maybe a different perspective and appreciation for the job John Calipari has done with his team year after year, because we played four freshmen a lot. Started three freshmen, sometimes four.

And that's a unique experience. But we kind of found our way through the season, kind of grew as a team, fought through some injuries, and then got a Christmas present in April when Miles, shockingly to me, decided to come back.

So you add those four sophomores with two guys that were hurt, Schilling and Ben Carter. So we have some size now. The addition of a 6'8" and 6'11" guy in Xavier Tillman and Jaren Jackson has made a different kind of practice.

Last year Nick Ward could go against a 6'5" walk-on and score whenever he wanted. This year it's been a little bit different. That's been good.

Surprises: I think getting Kenny Goins, Matt McQuaid back after they missed seven, eight months last summer and did not have very good sophomore seasons, they've had great spring summers and fall. And Cassius Winston, he's kind of gotten to the shape he needed to get in, and has really improved his defense, has really improved his offensive shooting. Which I guess he always had, just never utilized. But he's been a pleasant surprise.

And of course, being the senior that is maybe the best leader I've ever had, him and Cleaves, he's just been a special player in a lot of ways that keeps this team, the glue together.

And Miles is I think somebody special for all college basketball, because he's -- I call him my blue-collar star. And he's got the humility and the humbleness of an everyday player and the skills of a very, very good player.

So we are expecting big things out of this team. But there's a lot of good teams in this league this year.

Q. What would you say to the fans who have maybe lost faith in this sport after everything that's happening with the FBI investigation?
COACH IZZO: You know, I think the biggest thing -- and not knowing everything that's gone on -- I mean what you read is -- no insult to you guys -- it isn't always 100 percent true. And what you see, what you hear, as it comes out, could be worse.

But I think like every walk of life right now -- Jud Heathcote, rest his soul, used to always tell me about the 10 percent rule. There's going to be 10 percent problems in every profession, whether it be coaching, whether it be in business, whether it be writers. I guess you could go to policemen to priests nowadays to everybody, there's a 10 percent.

So I wouldn't paint the brush over college basketball or football or athletics. But I do think we need to shore up some things, to be honest with you. I think there's just getting to be too many people involved with these kids in general where their circle used to be very tight. In the last 15 years the circle has grown. In the Twitter era the circle has exploded. I'm not sure that's good for them or good for us or good for basketball.

Q. Given how well such a young team did last year, not just with Miles, but with Josh and Cash and Nick, do your personal expectations change this year, given getting to the second round of the NCAA Tournament last year, do they change now that they're a year older?
COACH IZZO: Well, my expectations change enormously, number one, just having some depth and some size makes a difference.

But I wouldn't consider last year a success. I mean, not in the standards of, I think, of what we built but considering -- I guess we could give us a passing grade, not a Michigan State grade by any means, as far as I'm concerned.

We still lost some games I thought we could have won. And some of that falls on me. Having to adjust to some things that I didn't.

This year the biggest adjustments from a coaching staff is going to be figuring out how to put all these players together. Because I have some depth. I have more than I've had back to like '05 or '09 when I had a lot of depth.

And both those years were good years. Depth can be helpful, especially this day and age where it seems like more guys are getting hurt. But expectations should be strong from every Spartan fan, our coaches and our players.

But keeping a realism that in this league, there's so many good coaches in this league -- and I look at -- I heard we were picked to win it. But I heard there were like five teams picked second. And it just goes to show what this league has, and that's parity.

And I think last year we had it maybe at the bottom. Two years ago we had tremendous strength at the top three or four.

And I think this year we're going to have strength at the top six, seven or eight, and the bottom is going to be a lot better than it's been. So it should be a great year for Big Ten basketball.

Q. You guys usually played such a good non-conference schedule. Do you have any reluctance to go along with the new 20-game conference slate?
COACH IZZO: You know, I had reluctance when it went to 18, to be honest with you. And then it's kind of worked out. I was in favor of it going to 20 because I think everybody, I think now the fans, television, even the coaches, you want to play the best people.

Does it give us less of a chance to play a couple of teams? Maybe. But I've also been a big fan of the truest champion you could have, and I think that when you're only playing 16 and an 18, sometimes the schedule determines some of the championships over the performance on the court.

This gives us the better chance to have the performance on the court, do it. We're going to get better games. How we fit it all in, you know, that's Jim and Mark's job. We're just going to play the games. I hope we can fit it in right to make it good. But I think 20 games is going to be great.

Q. I know you've wanted it for a while now. Protecting that rivalry with Michigan, how important is that to you that that's going to be a thing moving forward?
COACH IZZO: We can make a big deal of Michigan/Michigan State. Every rivalry in sports is important.

I mean, it's a rivalry, usually, because there's some proximity, would be one reason, you know, whether it be Indiana/Purdue, whether the USC/UCLA, Oklahoma/Oklahoma State, all the different rivalries, North Carolina/Duke. And second, both teams have to be good. And if both teams are good, rivalries have more meaning.

It's no fun when you go to the water cooler and you're winning one out of 10 games, but it's fun if every other year your team is winning. Not as much fun for the coaches, but it's a lot more fun for the people.

So I think preserving rivalries that people have grown up on in this changing world was a very good move by the Big Ten. And I think it's going to benefit a lot of us and hopefully it will catch fire around the country. If it hasn't, where all those rivalries should be protected, in my humble opinion.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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