Head Coach Tom Izzo
Opening Statement…
Disappointing loss. They just played harder and better than we did. We looked like we were in quicksand right from the get-go. I give them a day off even on a two-day prep even and we just had some guys that didn’t look very good. I didn’t think that in a million years we would have to double on the post and we we’re worried about their free throw shooting, and they just got layup after layup. We missed five or six layups and 7-14 from the line. You can’t do that against a good team, they’re a good team, they’re well coached, the Krikke kid was unbelievable. I was unfortunately proud of Patrick McCaffery, he’s played his tail off and it really hurt us. I think with six left to go in the half we’re three up, they go on a 15-1 run and we just look all out of sorts. Stats are funny. We did a decent job on second chance points, did a decent job on the fast break, benches were even. They go 18-23 we go 7-14 from the line. We make ten threes and lose easy. They have six turnovers, we have eight. It was all energy. Our guards didn’t guard, our bigs didn’t guard, a couple of our guards on switches didn’t guard and I didn’t do enough job either. We’ll regroup, it was disappointing to lose a game like that at home, but we didn’t deserve to win it, they did.
On whether he was surprised by Krikke’s production with Freeman on the bench…
Yeah. It worked out better because they put another shooter in and we thought about doubling, we were so worried about shooting, they hit four threes for the night and absolutely killed every one of our post guys. Have to come up with something better on that, it hasn’t happened, just layup after layup. I heard they had 16 layups and two dunks. Not many teams come in here and shoot that against us. Not many teams come in here and shoot that against us. Shoot 50-percent and you’re going to lose even though we shot 45 and 50 from the 3. 7-14 [free throws], the number of layups we missed, and the number of layups they got was the difference in the game. It was just the energy level that wasn’t in the game and tonight we just didn’t bring it. There’s been many games where we flat-out don’t bring it, tonight we flat out didn’t bring it.
On certain Iowa guys shot better than they expected…
Well, it would’ve been ok as an excuse if I didn’t have a second…
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