Opening Statement

As you can imagine, there are many emotions you go through. First of all, the outside things but the inside things. The game itself. I thought we played as good of a 38 minutes as you could play. Give Michigan credit, give Kobe credit, the shot he hit in front of the bench with no time left on the shot clock, it'll go in 1 out of 100 times and he made it. Give him credit. The lack of rebounding for us once Mady got in foul trouble for us and Joey could only play so many minutes. Their size hurt us. We just didn't make the plays down the stretch. This team has gotta realize when you make a mistake like getting a technical for no reason, that's two points. You blow a coverage. You get a lot of, well, it's just one time what are you on me for? Well, one time at this level is the difference between winning and losing. We have to do a better job of coaches making sure guys understand the one time thing. I'd like to thank the University of Michigan for the things they did on our behalf, of our university and students. Three deceased students, ones that are in the hospital and I thought it was a very class move on their part and I appreciated that. Our players, I appreciate the effort they gave me. It was an interesting week to say the least. Trying to figure out how we deal with it, manage it, motivate, and sympathize. There are a lot of keywords that went into what we did. All in all, we played the game for two hours. Played the game to try to make many people back in East Lansing and around the world that are Michigan State alums escape for two hours and try to enjoy the moment. I thought, for the most part, we did our part. They just did it a little better. We did not play very good the last two minutes.

On practicing being difficult this week

That's the unique part about it. What we tried to do is spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to handle a situation that there is no blueprint for, no book. No Heathcote help. I thought we all, our university, our mental health people, I thought our student-athletes did their part. Wednesday's sucked. Thursday was better and Friday's was a pretty good practice. That could happen in a normal week. There's no excuses for what we did in the last two minutes. What I asked of them is to give everybody something to be proud of and I thought, for the most part, we did that.

On whether he got lost in the competition as a distraction

I think with every tragedy, and I've unfortunately been through too many things during the last four, five, six years, go back to 9/11, getting back to normalcy the best you can shouldn't be taken as an insult to people—I felt it hard to give a Knute Rockne speech because I was thinking what would I do as a parent? Would I feel good? That was difficult. Just like I believe—I'm a weirdo. I believe we should've gone back to work after COVID. I think we should get back to school Monday. I realize there's going to be problems that people are going to have to deal with things. I don't know how you learn to deal with things if you never went through them. I think it's very important that normalcy regains itself and, yet, don't forget what happened. That would be an insult to the victims. Don't forget it and try to do better. Unfortunately, the sad part of life is that it does move on. I'm hoping that our university heals and I'm hoping the way to heal is to get everybody back together and not keep everybody separated. We've been separated enough for two years with COVID and Twitter and all the crap that we had to go through. I think getting everybody back together is good. Getting my team back together is good. I do think the competition helped. A win would help more because it was right there. 1:57 left and he hits a Hail Mary. We didn't respond. The final score was not indicative of the game, they did deserve to win the game because they did it fair and square and they deserve that.

On the start of the game

We shot it well but the turnovers, that is where we gave two turnovers and I think it was—give McDaniels credit but he had two layups and a three and we just didn't guard. That was the first thing Tyson said. I did a poor job at the start. We were good enough offensively, we weren't very good defensively and the turnovers. Really what beat us was the rebounding. We very seldom rebounded like that. When they went with the two bigs, we didn't take advantage of it on the other end enough. We let them dominate us down there, in all honesty.

On how to support his team heading into the game

I must've called 20 coaches and a few of our medical people. I made it damn clear at pregame meal that I am not changing how we're coaching unless you tell me that you can't handle it. I don't think a couple of guys handled everything real well. But I don't think I changed much tonight. The problem is what we had to do with the three days coming into it. It's hard to be a PR whatever, whatever, whatever and compassionate at the same time. That's a very delicate balance. I'm better at the first part. Yet, maybe I learned something. We didn't lose the game because of how we practiced. We made some mistakes you don't get to make in big games. We have to live that. We have to hold onto that, The focus, I asked for 40 minutes of focus and got 38. I feel pretty honored about that. I'm proud of the guys because I don't know how they felt. I know how I felt, I know the beginning the national anthem, the tribute. As a parent, you look at it a little differently as a coach. I have no problem with how I handled it, no problem with how I handled it. I don't get to crawl into their brain, I really don't know.

On the message during the last timeout

My message was we have to get to the point where we understand—I'll just say it bluntly because that's who I am. AJ's technical in the beginning, it was very undisciplined, dirty, and ridiculous. Very warranted. For no reason. It's just one little thing. Probably some of you have written about me over the years, why does he blow up on this? Well, it's two points. There are a couple of missed opportunities that were just not good. I'm sure they made some, too, but you're on the road, going through the week you did, you don't get to have those kinds of mistakes. I thought AJ played one of his best games, he made some great plays, he did some good things defensively. It's just you look for perfect and that's what happens when you try to beat a good team on the road and they're a good team. They're like us. They can beat anybody in this league and I think anybody in this league can beat us and then, that's kind of how it's always been.

On putting the game away

I think we were up 8, took two bad shots and a turnover. Those things are the difference between winning and losing. Some of it is me. I will say one thing that was a problem for us tonight is that we got into foul trouble. We hadn't been playing Malik at the 4 much in practice because we haven't been able to practice the whole time. We were trapping which I thought we did a hell of a job when it was Joey and Mady. All of the sudden, we put Malik in a new position he hasn't worked on much. That's not his fault, that's our fault, I guess. They got a couple of—the kid hit that big three, Baker. It was because Joey hadn't gone yet which he wasn't supposed to and we thought he did crackdown and he left him wide open.Those are things that are gonna happen in a game. It's just disappointing to play that hard and play that well and have those couple of little mistakes. Some would say that's basketball.

On AJ Hoggard's technical foul not bottling up the emotions

AJ is a Philadelphia kid and he's like me, wears his emotions on his sleeve. I'm sure a lot of guys had a lot of pent-up things in them. It's a rivalry game, that in itself. Their guys, there was some jawing and bowing that went on. Make a good play and to say something to the bench. You know, I took him out and I told him, I put him right back in. I guess the good news is, I'm sure he didn't like it, he's starting to respond and realize those two points you don't get back. I'm not blaming him for that, just using a couple examples of a few things that we have to sure up if we're going to make a run. Which, Malik, first half, the best half of basketball he's played all year. Defensively, offensively, second half maybe just the way the game flowed. That was encouraging. If we get that, we're going to get better. See what he can do.

On Dug McDaniel

I think he's improved a lot but when you start off with seven in a row, mostly on our mistakes, not taking anything away, I thought he played a brilliant game. I thought we let him get off to a good start, that's the first thing Tyson said to me in the locker room. Give a young kid confidence and he ran with it. I give him credit. If I would've told you were going to do the job—Dickinson hit a three late, I don't how many he ended up with. A couple of free throws late. He ended up with 14 so he would've been in single digits. We did what we wanted to do there. Most of the gameplan was called very well, we just didn't come up with a couple of loose rebounds. Give Reed credit, too. He had some big plays, three-point plays. That was the difference.

On Dickinson and Reed down the stretch

A lot changed. Mady and Joey in foul trouble and then we had Mady foul out. Then we had Malik having to play and Joey, that was our inside. We can go small ball against smaller guys but it's hard to go small ball against the biggest lineup. That's the biggest lineup in the Big Ten if they played them both together. The combination of things, when to double and what to do. There was a lot of practice on that I have to take responsibility for and will. That's what changed at the end.

On whether the game felt like a rivalry game after pregame

I'm sure it did. When you got a lead and you're winning, you want it to be a storybook ending. You want the Disney director, Hoosiers or Rocky, somebody is supposed to pop out of the crowd and say this is what is supposed to happen. I don't if I thought of the rivalry, I thought how my team was playing and the rivalry is always the rivalry for me. Had a different tone to it tonight a little bit. I think what you said earlier is the truth, once the game got going, I think it was same old Michigan-Michigan State rivalry that I've been part of for 40 years.

On what made his team capable of playing

That was the hard part during the week. I told them a lot that they had an opportunity that I cherish every day and that's the chance to make other people feel good. With that opportunity comes pressure. Some can handle it and some can handle it. That's what I worried about most. I wanted to beat that, I wanted to win it for every human being that went to Michigan State. I think I can handle that pressure, I'm not sure every person could. I don't know, we've been doing the best we can do. The game was not lost because of what happened. What happened is still a tragedy and if we forget about it, we're making a mistake. If we don't do everything we can do to stop the crap that's going on around our country, then shame on all of us. The game was won because Michigan made more plays down the stretch than we did, mostly in the rebounding area. We're going to have to live with that. Those mistakes in the beginning, the technical or this or that. If you win the game, nobody talks about it, especially the coach. Not to the public. Privately I would. Understand I'm not blaming anybody, I'm trying to say that these little runs. I think we were up eight and we made two terrible plays on the shot-clock. One of out of a timeout and we called a certain played and we got a little carried away. It was OK because it was a guy that played damn good all night. It's not OK because those runs, especially on the road and the crowd gets into the game and everything, it makes a difference when you win or lose. I guess I'll just close with saying thank you, even to you, the media, not badgering me with things we couldn't answer or know how to answer. I'm appreciative. Had a chance to see Lloyd Carr, he came to my locker room before the game. So many great people that I've met over the years that I appreciate. We're going to get better. If we can keep this team healthy and keep it together, we're going to get better before we run out of time. Yet, that was a game I thought we played good enough to win for a large period of time and didn't. That part will haunt me for the next two days. It's on to Indiana. Thanks a lot.

---

Discuss this article with our community on our premium message boards

Not a subscriber to Maize & Blue Review? Sign up today to gain access to all the latest Michigan intel M&BR has to offer

Follow our staff on Twitter: @JoshHenschke, @Berry_Seth14, @TrevorMcCue, @DennisFithian, @BrockHeilig, @JimScarcelli, @lucasreimink, @JaredHalus

Subscribe to our podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify

Check out Maize & Blue Review's video content on YouTube

Follow Maize & Blue Review on social media: Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram