NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST FOUR

March 18, 2021

Tom Izzo

Michigan St. Spartans

Mackey Arena

Postgame Media Conference

UCLA - 86, Michigan State - 80 (OT)

THE MODERATOR: We'll begin with an opening statement from Coach Izzo.

COACH IZZO: Well, just disappointed. I mean, we had the game won. And we made some of the same mistakes we've made two or three times this year in critical situations. And I thought we played incredibly well offensively and incredibly poor defensively.

And give them a lot of credit. They made some plays. We were up five, six. Seemed like we had it in control and just didn't rebound the ball like we could have or should have, especially under some situations.

So, it is what it is. It's a shame because I thought we played some of our best offensive basketball of the year.

Q. In those final two minutes, obviously when you go back up five there and they've taken the lead, what happened with the foul situations there? You guys got obviously, they got to the line a couple times. Was that their driving and getting contact or were there things defensively maybe that you didn't like?

COACH IZZO: Well, there were some things I didn't like defensively. I thought we had some tendencies that we talked about, who goes right, who goes left. And then they missed fouls and they got their free-throw rebounds.

So it was just a cluster of things that happened. I think within the last minute of the quarter, I don't know. I don't really have the timeline to it. But we didn't deserve to win at the end the way we handled that situation, with a left-handed guy drive left and a right-handed guy drive right. And didn't get a couple of key rebounds. And you lose games.

We said all along our margin for error is very slim. And yet I say that when, boy, that first half and part of the second we moved the ball so well and really played really good basketball. And made a couple of mistakes right before the half. We're supposed to switch. We didn't switch. They hit a shot. Those things -- you don't have many margins for error when you're just a good basketball team, which we are.

Q. You and Gabe Brown had sort of a heated exchange going into halftime. Could you tell us what that was about?

COACH IZZO: (Chuckling) you guys are beautiful. He missed a play and I told him. He walked away and I told him to come back. We went through this a couple of years ago. A game like that, that's the question you're going to ask me? I guess I'll answer it because the media has the right to ask whatever question.

But we'll get him in here and you can ask him. It was a normal nothing. It's just that this day and age everything is something. It was over a missed switch that we had talked about.

Q. Last play of regulation, wondering what you were looking for on that play with Aaron's shot and how that played out?

COACH IZZO: I was looking for Aaron to get to the basket where he could get fouled. I think we played Aaron so much he was just run down. Josh was hurt a little bit at halftime. And we just kind of grinded both those guys and just didn't have enough legs. But the deal was just to take it in there and pump fake and get fouled. And we didn't do that. So it was probably a poor play call on my part.

Q. You talked about some of the defensive mistakes late in the game. With the way you guys played late in some of those big wins late in the year, were you a little bit disappointed that that focus wasn't there at crunch time tonight?

COACH IZZO: I really was. Really was. Especially some of our key guys that it happened to. But I think some of that was fatigue and I don't know how many minutes I played a couple of those guys. But I think they did a better job of subbing. And, I mean, Aaron played 41 or 42 minutes. And Josh played 35 or six minutes. And I think we had some fatigue in there. We had some different guys in there. And I think that was part of it.

Q. The overtime period, the couple of possessions that you guys had, I guess how detrimental were some of those just in a sense that Rocket had an air ball and then Langford goes one-for-one from the line. And then you turn it over a couple of times. Just curious how you thought about the overall, the overtime overall?

COACH IZZO: Yeah, I think for the game, we ended up with 12 turnovers. And we had done a pretty good job not turning the ball over. I think we had three or four at halftime. We had a couple of key ones there. We had a couple of bad shots that just didn't go in. Nobody's trying to miss a shot.

We just didn't -- we just didn't execute as well as we should have done down the stretch. But you're right, we missed a free throw. I don't know what we shot from the line. It was probably pretty good -- 16-for-18 and the poor guy misses one.

I'd like to say for Joshua Langford, you know, unbelievable year. I mean, the kid gave me every single thing he had. And I think it's too bad he had to go out that way because I thought we were a good enough team to win it. But I give Mick and his team credit, because they were just a little tougher. And those guards kept driving the ball and driving the ball. And that's the way the game ended.

Q. There were moments in this game where it seemed like you guys had amazing flow and things just looking great, and other stretches where it just looked disconnected and disjointed. And did this all just feel like it was this season summed up in two hours?

COACH IZZO: Yeah, that's a damn good question. And I already think you answered it. It did seem like it. We did some really good things. We were moving the ball, then we got stagnant and quit moving the ball. When the ball goes side to side to side to side, I think it was Richard Pitino said during the third game of the year -- he had a stat on how his team did when the ball moved three times, one time to the other side, the other side and I thought, boy, we made some unbelievable passing plays and really did a nice job on some things.

And it got a little disjointed. I would agree with that. We were running out of gas a little bit. And we had some matchup problems because they went really small for a while and we didn't handle that real well either. We just kind of ran out of one extra body.

But I'd say that's a good way to put it. That's the way the season went. And you just can't make the same mistakes over and over and over again. And that falls on me. We gotta do a better job of figuring out how to cut out or what to do or not turn the ball over, take a bad shot.

But nobody tried to miss any shots. It wasn't anything that anybody did. It's just the way the game went.

Q. You mentioned about them going small with Juzang and Jaquez, they obviously had their way at times. What was it that they were able to do, and in particular Juzang the second half and in overtime before he got hurt?

COACH IZZO: He just drove the ball, drove the ball and drove the ball. I mean, he's a strong kid. Goes right every time. And we knew it. And we didn't always stop it.

And Josh was a little bit shaken up at halftime, his ankle. So I tried to play Aaron on Jaquez more the second half because he was hurting us in the first half. And so I had to play Aaron at the 4 defensively. And that hurt us a little bit, too, because I thought he did a pretty good job for a while. And then just the lineup changes we just had different guys.

For those two guys to get 50 points, we said that would be the game. It was the game. I thought Rocket did a pretty good job on Campbell. He hits that one big 3 but I thought we did a pretty good job keeping him out of the lane and all the things we wanted to do. We didn't do a very good job keeping those other guys out. So give them credit.

Q. There was a missed box-out on a free throw with about 37 seconds left. Hurt you in early January also -- you can only teach it so much I would imagine. Was that just a missed box-out for a shooter on that situation? And how do you view that going into the postgame now?

COACH IZZO: Well, I think I know what happened but I don't know for sure. So I'll reserve the right to look at the film. But there was some box-outs on free throws throughout the year that hurt us, I think, three times or two times. If this was the third, that hurt us, 37 seconds. But I didn't exactly know what happened. I didn't know if it was a long one. You would know more than me because you get replay, I don't.

So, it's tough to lose a game the way we lost it. I really mean that. I had some guys that played their tails off. Gabe Brown was one of them. Marcus Bingham was one of them. We really played extremely, extremely hard, but we just didn't make the plays that mattered. Aaron played pretty good. Like I said, I think I wore him down a little bit. That's kind of the way we had it with our guards this year. We just didn't have enough depth at that position.

Q. I know you talked about getting off to good starts in the halves. You obviously got it in the first half, but in the second half and overtime in particular, the turnovers and everything that were going on there. Could you sense it at that point that things were getting away from the guys at the beginning of overtime?

COACH IZZO: I could. I thought we looked tired. We looked fatigued. And we just didn't have -- Aaron's our go-to guy and he was worn out. And, so, like I said, they did a much better job of moving guys around. When they went small they moved guys around.

And they had two guys that played a lot of minutes, too. And they missed shots. We just didn't get the rebounds. A couple of those turnovers and a couple missed rebounds really hurt us.

But in general a hell of a year. And I would like to say to everybody, because I listened to student-athletes or media or coaches, I just want to take my hat off to Danny Gavitt and JoAnn (phonetic) and Scott (phonetic) and all the people that gave us an opportunity to play. Last year we were sitting at home. We thought we had a team that was capable of getting to a Final Four and those guys didn't even get a chance.

Thanks to the incredible -- I mean, to me everything was incredible, the facilities, the food, treatment, the practice facilities. I think it was maybe one of the greatest things that ever took place.

And sometimes even I, because I'm on some boards, malign the NCAA and different things, but I hope people realize just how big of an undertaking this was and how pleased my players were to get an opportunity to play, especially the ones that didn't get that opportunity last year.

So, hats off to them. Thank you. I appreciate it. Sorry I'm not going to be staying here longer to enjoy it. But I think it will be a hell of a tournament still because they've done everything you could possibly do in maybe the toughest times. And you had to see the practice facility and how you didn't even have to go outside and bring in lunches to your room. And I just thought some people are complaining about it. Makes me sick, because they did an unbelievable job.

And I know my guys were happy as hell we got to play. And so for that I say thank you. For fans, I say I feel disappointed, feel like I let you down. And we're going to work on some things next year probably this summer. Hopefully it won't happen to us again over and over. And we'll see if we can do a better job of some of the things that I did. And yet I want to make sure we reiterate, like the coaches did and the team did to Josh, he gave us so much. He bounced back and did so many things. It was damn near incredible the effort he put forth to come back and play after nobody gave him a chance to ever play.

For that, I just want to make sure all of our alums say thank you to him. So, thanks a lot for everything.