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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: DES MOINESMarch 23, 2019Tom IzzoXavier TillmanCassius WinstonNick WardDes Moines, Iowa Michigan State 70, Minnesota 50 THE MODERATOR: At this time we are joined by the Spartans of Michigan State. TOM IZZO: Thank you. I'm proud of these guys. We just played 5 games in 8 days and it took a toll on some of us. There were stretches where we were good and bad but couple things happened today that were bizarre. You know, we beat a team by 20 when we had 22 turnovers. I thought Aaron Henry did a good job on Amir Coffey. He had 25 points but he took 20-some shots. It was good to get Nick back in the fold here a little bit. It's not easy to do what he did, and, you know, Xavier was Xavier. Matt McQuaid was Matt McQuaid. Cassius was a little rusty, a little sore. So and to play that many games in 8 days when you are already beat up is hard. One of the timeouts I told him he's got to take over and like a true all-American did. He took over and had about as good of a two-minute stretch there as you could and a 9-point lead went to 16 and we starting cruising. Getting back Nick is going to be big for us. He had 9 and 7. Xavier had 7 or 8 rebounds. Kenny had 6 or 7, and we outrebounded them bad. And yet I want to be fair to Richard and his team. We all love Jordan Murphy. He's a tough kid, best rebounder on the planet and it was sad not to see him play to himself. I think we deserve credit for the start we had and we were sloppy, but man, another championship weekend for us and we move on to the next one and I can't tell you how excited I am. THE MODERATOR: At this time, questions for our student-athletes? Q. Cassius, when Izzo told you it was time to take over how do you do that while keeping within yourselves? You answered with a three-pointer and a couple of floaters. When you have that green light how do you do it and stay solid? CASSIUS WINSTON: It's about your energy level and your approach, focusing on the task at hand. You've got to make big plays. I've got to be who I am for this team. That's my role for this team. That's what I've been doing all year. I don't try to do too much. I don't try to put the world on my shoulders, but I try to make plays to the best of my ability. Q. Xavier, Nick, when you see Cassius go on that run to push it back to 16, what's your reaction to that in the moment? NICK WARD: It was big, you know, because they went on a little run, but Cassius went on a scoring spree, you know, and just put us up big. XAVIER TILLMAN: For me, that's just typical Cassius. That's just what he does. Whenever we need him to score, whenever we need him to distribute, whenever we need him to just lead vocally he does whatever we need him to do, and that was just another day in the park. Q. Cassius and Nick, where are you healthwise and how bad do you need rest? Few days off sound good for you guys? NICK WARD: I'm just getting back in the swing of things. I'm was out four weeks, so I'm just excited to be on the court. I'm starting to feel like my regular self again. So I'm good, personally. TOM IZZO: You're not. CASSIUS WINSTON: I'm just happy to be in the tournament grind and I knew it was going to be a grinder weekend, but I was okay in the games. I made it through the games and I feel like I did pretty decent. Now we got some time to get back home, get some treatment and get a little rest and by next go-round I will be fully ready. Q. Xavier, Sweet 16 for your team, your first one for a lot of your guys. Your thoughts about getting that far? XAVIER TILLMAN: I'm just excited more so because my freshman year it didn't end the way I was hoping to. So I'm just excited we were able to advance past this pointed and more excited for our program because we haven't been able to do that for three years, to break the curse feels pretty good. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you very much. At this time we will take questions for Coach. Q. Tom, five games in eight days, right? Your energy and focus the way you guys came out, were you surprised by that? TOM IZZO: I was surprised for the first ten minutes and then as all coaches would be, you know, disappointed. We had 11 turnovers at halftime and talked about it. So one thing about my team they listen well. We had 11 turnovers the second half, too. That part was disappointing but the focus early, the execution early, we got our fast break going. I'm a little concerned because he's struggling. I mean, Nick is, if I am to be honest with you, that wasn't the best I've seen Cassius play and if he can do that not playing his best that bodes well. But we're going to have to get him some rest these next couple of days. They had five games in nine days. We had five games in eight days. At this high level when you're playing the teams you're playing, for what's at stake it's both mentally and physically grinding, you know, and I don't know, it was tough. Yet I was happy that Cassius answered the bell, you know. But we had some other guys that played pretty well. Matt McQuaid and Aaron Henry were I thought really good, probably should have had them up here. They probably played as good as anybody. Q. You guys all but shut Gabe Kalscheur down. How were you able to keep him from getting any good looks at all? Early he tried to force it and after that it was almost nothing, how were you guys so effective? TOM IZZO: We put Aaron on Amir Coffey and if you think about putting a freshman on their best because we thought Matt McQuaid could stay with him and Gabe Kalscheur has been on fire, and them two, they were in the Big Ten tournament and with the injury that Murphy. I don't want to take all the credit because I told Richard before the game, you know, being one of the elder coaches in this league, it's fun for me to see some of these teams, the job he did, you know, and they almost pronounced him dead there in the middle of January. When you can bring your team back from something like that and he had a lot of injuries and I know what that's like, that speaks volumes of the coach. I give him a lot of credit and I give us some credit. But we were really focused early and we lost some focus and some of it was Cassius and he said he was worn down and I always tell him when the head goes the body follows. He's our head. When he got back on the horse, the rest of the guys did. It's pretty cool that he's got that much impact on our team. Q. Cassius obviously had those 7 points in a row, but he had a steal and a deflection that led to another steal. How was he able to impact the game on that end of the floor? TOM IZZO: That's what I said. If you watched him it's hard to self-evaluate and hard to see yourself if you're playing and we were sitting on the bench and it looked like he was hardly moving. You know, and I guess I will be transparent which sometimes gets me in trouble but we'll do it anyway. He was hurting, you know. He just was worn out. I said, well, here is the way it is, my man, we got, you know, 20-some minutes left. If you're worn out you'll get a lot of rest. If you're not worn out you got another week or so and you'll get a lot of rest any way. So how about we get after it and try to prolong this because it's like I tell people sleep is overrated you know you can do it for a million years later on. And that's what I told Cassius. I just love the fact that he responded. He wouldn't have responded like that two years ago if you ask me. He responded and I know how he felt. Yet I also know what he did. It was pretty impressive. Q. Tom, I think it's 14 Sweet 16s for you in 22 years. Does it feel like some of the other ones? How does it feel now? TOM IZZO: This one feels better. We were disappointed in '16. We had a real good team and we had a loss to a team that played better, Middle Tennessee, and the next year people said we didn't play well. We had injuries to our bigs and I thought, last year, so many issues. But I look at these guys and these guys have won 60 games now in two years. That's a hell of an accomplishment and getting back to the Sweet 16, there's nothing like playing when it stays daylight longer. You come out of those practices now and the sun is still shining. It's the greatest feeling in the world. Q. It seems like Nick Ward has to learn to play again and the team has to learn to play around him again. That's the next thing to work on, I imagine? TOM IZZO: Think about it, since Nick has been back, we had two practices before the Big Ten tournament and now we have 1 and a half practices since then and now we go back Sunday, probably take the day off Monday and then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday get practice and that's going to be good for him. I think the guys were good and they wanted to get the ball into him. They know he's been hurting. He's averaging 17, 18 points a game and it's taken away from you and you want to get it all back in one possession. I thought he was really good early and then all of the sudden he started forcing a few things and then he settled down late and that was a big step to keep him in there late. So I'm happy for Nick. It's be not easy to do what he's trying to do. It's not easy for our team. We reinvent the wheel 15 times this year and now maybe we don't have to reinvent it. We just have to firm it up a little bit and do a little bit better job of getting these guys to feel comfortable with each other. Why we turned it over like we did, I mean, I've never seen Cassius throw hook passes into guys' arms three times or Kenny sit there and throw it into guys' arms. They either had hellaciously long arms or my guys were in a fog there a little bit and maybe a combination of both. I give them credit. But, you know, even when they bounce back and cut it to 9, not as easy as you think then to get back off the carpet and do what we did either, you know? It has been a brutal eight days and I'm just proud as hell of my team for doing it and the way everybody is responding and now looking forward to going Washington D.C. That will be a treat. I guess we got LSU. That's been determined and another challenge. Thank you, and let me say this: They told me when I got here that this was a heck of a place to hold one of these, not the biggest city and this and that. But it was awesome and whoever was in charge of the weather, probably you, hell of a job. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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