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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: DES MOINESMarch 21, 2019Tom IzzoMatt McQuaidCassius WinstonDes Moines, Iowa Michigan State 76, Bradley 65 THE MODERATOR: We will go ahead with questions for our student-athletes. Q. Cassius, congratulations on the victory. Take me through the second half. How did you guys get it going? I know team rebounding was better the second half. Was that a point of emphasis? CASSIUS WINSTON: Yeah, definitely. Just the first game is always tough. You've got to get used to the atmosphere, the arena, things like that. First half, that was a really good team, also. They were solid in a lot of areas. So second half we pride ourselves in dominating games and do what we do best, that's rebounding and getting stops. We knew if we did those things we was going to come out on top. Q. You had a big three-pointer coming out of a timeout that gave you guys separation. What was the process there and take me through that scenario? MATT McQUAID: Coach saw something throughout the game and he called it in the huddle and Aaron went down, pinned his name and I came up and hit the shot. Cassius gave me a good pass. Q. Matt, in a tight game when the other team is scrapping and standing with you, you have Cassius out there leading things, controlling things. What's it mean to have a guy like that you know you can lean on? MATT McQUAID: Means a lot. He does so much for this team. The way he leads and controls the game, just his passing ability and his vision, along with the scoring ability. It gets everybody on the court open and you've got to be ready for his passes. Q. Cassius, you talked about the first game can be the toughest sometimes. What's it feel like? You've got one out of the way and the way the other team pushed you today. Sigh of relief or momentum now? What's it like to survive this game? CASSIUS WINSTON: Definitely feels good to be advancing, you know? I think Coach said at the end of the game even after all that we're still one of the last 32 standing right now. We know there is a lot that we can improve, but that's our plan to get better and better each and every step of the way and now we got a chance to get better and that's always a good thing. THE MODERATOR: Congratulations, guys. Coach, we will get an opening statement. TOM IZZO: These guys probably did a better job than I did. I felt like we were ready to play. I just felt like, in all honesty, Bradley played well the first half. They made shots. I think we covered real well. We missed shots. Kenny Goins really struggled. I thought he had some great looks. Then we had some bizarre lineups, and Conner and Gabe are not household games right now and just because of foul trouble we had to play with them. But you know, we wanted to get Nick Ward more minutes, and we got him some. But because of some defense coverage and that it made it harder. He's just not quite there yet, not all his fault, a little bit ours. He was productive getting to the free throw line and scoring a bucket and getting 5 rebounds. So I thought we got a little more out of him. We were 7, 8 up that was the first time I saw Cassius collapse, you know, the guy has been going so many minutes in that Sunday/Thursday turnaround. I felt he couldn't go. We had a turnover. They had a rebound. He let his guy go right around him the way we told him he was going and hard to get mad at him when he's doing everything he can for me and playing every minute of the game. It's just the situation we are in. I thought in general Bradley play better than I've seen them play this year, and that's a great tribute to Brian and his team and what they did. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Izzo? Q. Coach, with all the adversity, how proud are you of your players to hold their composure, break away with a lead in the second half and survive and advance? How important was it for the team to hold on to that composure? TOM IZZO: First of all, thank you for the question, because usually the questions are leading to, I'm a tell-it-like-it-is guy. I'm not giving my team enough credit. I know what we've been through from that Friday, Saturday, Sunday, get home and what we've gone through. You say it's an excuse, you don't say it. You're damn right, I'm proud of them. I am. We're still going to grind it. We're going to push it. We are still going to make mistakes. We didn't show mental toughness. I thought we were worn down. It's going to be good to go back to the hotel and look at some things. I am proud. Matt McQuaid and Cassius Winston just wouldn't let us lose and that was the two guys that talked the most in the huddles. Xavier struggled and then came around late and rebounded the ball really well, and in all honesty, Kenny just struggled. But he, too, played forty minutes in Chicago. Excuse. Reality. Whatever. I'm proud of this team until I get back to the hotel and then it's going to be dog-eat-dog until Saturday and then get back at it. Q. Coach, you mentioned Bradley played well particularly in the first half. Is there anything specifically that they did better than you thought they could do? TOM IZZO: They cut so hard and they've got really good athletes, those guards, Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye and Lundy, you know where they're going. They drive it right. There is nobody making any scouting reports there. It's simple, yet we couldn't stop 'em. We couldn't do that. I felt bad for my assistants. They did a hell of a job on the report and we didn't follow it as well. I think some of it was we've just had some bizarre line-ups in there and we're trying to change things because of who we think we could have in the game and that's not a great coaching job on my part. Instead of staying with what we do and plug another person in, but trust me there are some things we had to change and it makes it hard on Nick because we're changing in the middle. So now we're going to play a team that has a couple bigs, that's more of a conventional team. I think that's going to be better for us in a way because, you know, I love the kid. Everybody loves Brown, but I thought Childs played really well today. He posted us up. He scored on us. I thought he did a very, very good job. I thought we did a decent job on Nate Kennell, and I don't know what Brown ended up. But that kid is a load to cover. Very good. Q. Tom, at one point in the second half you got after Aaron Henry going into a timeout. Saw what he did but wondering why that made you so angry? TOM IZZO: You think there was one thing that would make me that angry, you don't know me very well. There was a bunch of things, you know, and, hey, he's playing a lot of minutes, too. He's tired, too. When you are a freshman now at this time of year you don't make mental mistakes on things we're telling a guy which way he goes or not running back. There are some things Aaron didn't do a very good job of and yet, you know what? I did get after him and he did respond and he did make a couple of big buckets and he did make a couple of big free throws, but that's not good enough. This is one-and-done time. The my bads are out the window. If it's my fault because that guy played better and it's my bad because I walked back and didn't sprint back, then it is your bad and you're going to hear about it. So that's what it was. Q. Tom, after the thing with Henry you knew you had to stick with him because you don't have much of a bench and at the end of the game did you call to feed the ball into him and when the ball found him in the post. Did you go to him even though you challenged him because you knew you would have to challenge him at some point or you knew you would have to go to him? TOM IZZO: We challenged him and we said if he's going to down screen, Matt McQuaid hits the one, and we said the next time we will slip and get it to you in the post because they would sorta jump on Matt McQuaid. It sorta happened that way and he made a couple of big plays in there which is capable of doing. I get a kick out of you guys. Get after somebody because you're trying to hold them accountable. I don't know what kind of business you're in, because if I was head of a newspaper and you didn't do your job you would be held accountable. That's the way it is. Q. You guys were minus 6 in rebounding at halftime. You were plus 15 in rebounding in the second half. How did you make that happen? TOM IZZO: No, no, it was a love fest! We said, hey guys it's okay if we got rebounded by another team and we said that's okay. But if we could do a better job that would be great because then we could win. That's what we did. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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