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MAUI JIM MAUI INVITATIONALNovember 25, 2019Tom IzzoAaron HenryCassius WinstonLahaina, Maui, Hawaii Virginia Tech - 71, Michigan State - 66 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from coach. TOM IZZO: Well, I've said this for 20 years. Upsets happen. And that's no insult to them, but it is an upset. Upsets happen. The three-point shot and foul trouble, and we had both, along with a bunch of missed layups. I give a lot of credit to Mike and his team. I thought they played harder than us and better than us. Cassius got into foul trouble. I'm not sure he ever got back in the rhythm. He tried. We struggled in the post. Both of our post guys early just did not guard. I thought Aaron played very well in a lot of ways and but we just didn't play well enough to win. So they shot 48 percent from the three. That shouldn't happen to us, but it did. Give them the credit. They deserve it. And a number of turnovers, yeah, it was 16 and the number of people in foul trouble, especially when it's Cassius for us, we're not the same team. So hat's off to Mike and his team. I thought they played extremely hard, extremely well and I guess we're going to find out a little bit about our team. But I publicly want to apologize to maybe the greatest fan group that was here. We feel like I let them down and it's been an interesting couple of weeks and we just weren't as sharp today. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. Open it up for questions for the players. Q. Cassius, I wanted to ask you about how tough that was early having to sit so long in the first half and then just Tom mentioned just trying to get in that flow in the second half. There was a lot of shots normally you would make. How tough was that? CASSIUS WINSTON: Yeah, it was difficult to sit that long. Just got to be smarter than that and make better decisions for my team, and then to try to come back out and to try to play to that high level and stuff like that. It's kind of hard to get back in your rhythm, get back in the flow of the game. Q. For both you guys: The shift to have Aaron bring up the ball at the end of the game and kind of run that point, how do you feel that that worked in terms of getting you guys back in it? What allowed, how did that allow you to find some rhythm there, Cassius? CASSIUS WINSTON: It was huge. Just wherever I'm at there's a lot of attention on me. They, a lot of teams assume the ball is coming back into my hands one way or another. So to free him up a little bit and let him get down hill and let him play to his strengths a little bit, count my man out a little bit because he focuses me so much, it gives him a little bit of open lane to work with. AARON HENRY: Same thing he said. I knew it was just one of those things where not many teams are going to leave him at any point on the court. So just knowing that they need to put him in that position and Coach put me in a great spot to be effective and that was it. Q. For both you: How important are these next two days right here on Maui? CASSIUS WINSTON: Huge. You can't let one loss kind of ruin your trip down here. It's still a business trip. We're still here to get better as a team. We took a step back today but we got to find a way to rally and come up with two big wins to keep pushing us forward in the season. AARON HENRY: It's going to be huge. We're going to find out a lot about ourselves individually and more importantly as a team. We got some adversity to face and we're going to see if we can overcome it and, obviously, we're going to just keep playing. Q. Your coach talks about the value of these tournaments, when you won the PK80 in Portland in the early season. Is there value in a game where things don't go right in these tournaments and a team gets hot from three, foul trouble in terms of what to avoid later when there is no tomorrow, that sort of thing? CASSIUS WINSTON: Yeah, definitely. It's all about learning how to win. That's what it comes down to. Not every game's going to go perfect. Not everything's going to work in your favor. But at the end of the day you still got to figure out a way to win and that's what these tournaments do. Today we didn't do that. We made some crucial mistakes and things like that, that we got to change going down the road. But these tournaments like that just teach you how to win as a team, back-to-back to back. THE MODERATOR: All right. Well take any questions for coach. Q. Yesterday you talked a lot about one of the things you wanted to look at is improving shooting and just a little bit more. I was surprised with the way in which folks were offensively handling things in the paint. You talk about your bigs struggling a little bit. What are some of the things you can do in these next couple days to get them to be more effective down in the paint. I think we had, Tillman had like four or five turnovers in the paint. What do you want to see them improve there? TOM IZZO: Catch the ball, make a layup, not turn the ball over. It's not that difficult. I do. I give them a lot of credit, but I probably should have played Cassius. I didn't have a lot of faith. I thought it was -- you know, right now, coaches are learning, officials are learning, players are learning. And I'm going to have to start playing my guys. I can't let them sit out. I just had no faith. I thought one of them was a ghost call and so I panicked. That's my fault, not theirs. But the play of our two starting big guys has to improve. And I think when you look at it and you say it has to improve and, I don't know what, Xavier probably got 14 rebounds, and that looks good. It didn't look very good to me. We out-rebounded them bad and we didn't score. We out-rebounded on the offensive end bad and we didn't make layups. The number of layups we missed. But the whole game came down to, as we said, three-point shooting and foul trouble. That's two ways that upsets happen and we had both of them. And we had some guys that didn't play well. Cassius, you know, it's sad because for me, because at a tournament like this, I would like all the people in Hawaii and everybody else to see, he was a shell of himself today. I think it's been a lot on him. I told you that. No excuses for me. I did the poor job. But I couldn't do what that kid has done, no way. And he just looked tired the whole time. I think the mental stress that he's going through. And, because he doesn't practice as much right now, physically I don't think he's in the shape he needs to be in. And I asked him at halftime and he said, You better keep grinding on me, coach, don't change one thing. Well, I got to tell you, that's hard for me and it's hard for him. So he's the straw that stirs the drink and the only reason we put Aaron there is they were doing a good job just trapping him and we thought we could get him off some pin downs. And when they stayed so glued to him, played screening with him, it left Aaron open for those shots. But as good as we did, we cut it to one or whatever, and we have our best defender on their best offensive player and he just come off a double screen and nailed it. And I just didn't think we did a very good job in the things that we normally do. And so maybe it is my fault. I'm talking about offense to you and I said defense wins and today our defense wasn't good enough, at least defending the three. Q. Their strategy to drop back and not let you guys run, how much do you feel like, not just with Cassius out, but with those other point guards in there that it wasn't allowing them to get into any rhythm. TOM IZZO: You know, I don't know I'll have to watch the film to see it that way. I just didn't think we ran -- Xavier looked slow all day and so did Cassius and then he wasn't in there and we're not the same running team without him in there. I mean, so, I don't know, I would have to watch the film. I didn't think that was the determining factor in the game. I thought the determining factor in the game started in the first couple minutes when plays we had gone over our bigs just did not execute and we gave up some threes and wide open shots right off the bat and it happens. And somehow, some way -- we didn't spend a lot of time on the beach. I promise you, we will spend no time on the beach tonight, tomorrow or tomorrow night. So we're going to spend some time in that walkthrough room and we won't make those mistakes again. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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