April 3, 2009

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Player Interviews | Open Practice | Izzo Honored by USBWA

Friday Open Practice Photo Gallery | Pep Rally Photo Gallery

Listen to Spartan Sports Podcasts:
Coach Izzo Press Conference | Players Press Conference
Marquise Gray | Delvon Roe | Korie Lucious

EAST LANSING, Mich. - Michigan State held its Final Four open practice Friday afternoon at Ford Field before an estimated crowd of 30,000. Following the 50-minute practice, head coach Tom Izzo, Kalin Lucas, Raymar Morgan, Goran Suton and Travis Walton answered questions at MSU's press conference.

Q. Chris Allen is a rarity in that he's from Georgia. Most of your recruiting is to nearby states. If there was a top 20 player from California, Georgia, Florida, do you bother going after these people?

COACH IZZO: Chris was a special guy. His aunt and uncle live next door to Magic Johnson's mother and father in Lansing, and there was a connection there, and he used to come up when he was a young kid.

Sure, I would go after him. Again, it goes back to today. I believe in the state. I think there's enough good players in this state where us and Michigan can do very well. I still believe in the family atmosphere. Sometimes you get more kids closer to home, more parents involved. Some people can look at that as a negative. I look at it as a positive.

If you have a star in Boston, you have a name for me, I'd be glad to take it.

Q. You have some big contributions lately from your freshmen, particularly Draymond Green. Can you talk about the freshmen stepping up in general.

COACH IZZO: Well, freshmen have stepped up. Delvon had a great second half, Big Ten season, then studying a little bit. I think he hit a little bit of a wall. Korie Lucious had some big moments where he hit some big shots. One of the reasons we've been up and down, we played our three freshmen, our three sophomores a lot. Draymond has been incredible of late. He was well-coached in high school, great understanding of the game, smart kid. I'd almost say his intelligence out does his skill level. He knows where to be at the right time. He knows where to read a rebound. Definitely he might not be the quickest guy, but he's the best position guy. Has a lot longer arms than his height. So he is a good rebounder because he's got some toughness. Even though maybe not a superior athlete, he's got that nose for the ball, that linebacker mentality, and he goes after it pretty good.

Q. You often talk about cutting off the head of the snake and the body will follow. What do you think you have to do with Price? How important is that matchup?

COACH IZZO: Well, I think that is a key matchup. Even though they have tremendous size up front, some very tough, good players up there, great rebounders. But I still think Price is the guy who stirs the drink. He's had an incredible tournament. He's making shots off the dribble even more. He's getting to the basket. If he gets to the basket, then we have to help with our big guys. It's going to be a dunkathon in there. We have to keep him in front of us, out of the paint. Easier said than done.

I ill still think Price, both from a scoring standpoint and from a penetration and cause-problem standpoint, is as good a player as we faced at that position now, and we've faced some good ones.

Q. You've talked about Goran as an enigma. Talk about his personality and your relationship with him over the years.

COACH IZZO: It's been great. It's one of those love/hate relationships. He needs to be pushed. He wants to be pushed. He's an incredible guy. Very intelligent and very worldly, would be a good word.

But there's times that he didn't love the game of basketball. I think he'd be the first to tell you. That might sound surprising to some. But it's more normal than you think.

But I think he has grown to really start to fall in love with it I. I think the last year and a half he's worked harder at it, had more success. If it wasn't for that injury early in the year that kept him out quite a while really - about eight weeks, missed all of our pre-season stuff, so he never had a good base - I think he would have had a dynamite senior year.

But what better way to save it than for the last month. He's been pretty good down the stretch.

Q. There was a great moment at the end of your workout, saying thank you to the crowd. Talk about what that meant to you, what was going through your mind at that point?

COACH IZZO: Remember, I was an assistant in the Goodwill Games. Flip Saunders was the head coach. Doc Rivers and I were assistants. We went to Australia. It was after that Olympics when we had some problems. After every game, Flip huddled the players in the middle and thanked the fans. I thought that was an awesome gesture. So I guess I copied it. I just told the guys, Spend the moment to do two things: thank the people that came, thank Detroit, and then soak it in because you're not going to get to soak it in from here on in. It's dog-eat-dog. We're going to be thinking about what we got to do to accomplish our goals.

So I said, "Just walk to the edge, thank them, then soak in your walk back to the locker room."

Hopefully they did that. We really appreciated the people there today. It was incredible, it was awesome.

Q. A couple years ago you said you thought maybe you had a real shot against North Carolina if you would have had Ibok ready. He could have made a big difference. You have him now. With the stakes so high, knowing he doesn't play much, what can he do for you? What has he been like during the preparation?

COACH IZZO: You know, Idong Ibok is probably -- I look at Mateen from the past, different players I had a chance to coach that I think had a bigger impact on me than I did on them. Ibok is one of those guys. They did a story of him over in his native country. Just kind of learning about the kid. That kid has come to practice every day. He has not played a ton of minutes for five years. Every day he's done everything asked. He's been on the scout team longer than most people. It's not even legal.

In saying that, we used him in the Illinois game at the end and he came through big for us. I mean, he knows this weekend he's going to have to play. I know he's going to have to play. I think our players know he's going to have to play. I think everybody is comfortable playing him.

He's done his job, his homework. He hasn't given up on anything. You're right, we're going to need him this weekend.

Q. At this stage of tournament every team is talented. How much does it come down to will and toughness?

COACH IZZO: I think players play and the toughest players win. I never changed that when we were not the toughest team or the toughest team. You're right. Everybody has all their great players. Somebody is going to make a few more shots than somebody else. It really comes down to who is going to cut out on the free-throw line, who is going to get the loose ball. We got a couple loose balls in the last couple of games that we're game changers, that if you're an average fan, you probably never realized what Chris Allen did, what Travis Walton, Durrell Summers saving a missed free throw did.

You hear coaches talk about little things make the difference. The biggest reason for that is everybody does the big things. The big things are stuff you do every day. The little things are what people do when nobody's watching, that kind of thing. If you have a habit of doing the little things as you get deep into this tournament where every possession counts, I think it makes a huge difference.

Q. Between yourself, Coach Calhoun and Coach Williams, all been to multiple Final Fours, and Jay making his first trip. Talk about the way he's starting to establish himself among the country's elite coaches.

COACH IZZO: I called Jay and gave him some great advice that nobody gave me. I told him to get your tickets and hotel done on Sunday night instead of on Friday night the following week like I did the first time.

But I love Jay Wright. He's a great guy. He's a very good coach. I think he's making an incredible impact there. It's kind of neat with Rollie being his mentor, I kind of feel like him and I have some things in common. I think he's going to have just an incredible career because he's been kind of on the edge here the last couple years. He finally got over that hump.

Once you get there, it's harder to get back. But at least you know the road to get there. I think he'll be able to use that with teams in the future.

Q. Travis Walton was voted most inspirational on your team by the players. What is it about him that earned that title?

COACH IZZO: You know, that's odd. Usually it goes to a sub or something else. But I think because every day he brings it. Every day, everybody knows, if you looked at just talent, I don't know where you'd put him, sixth, seventh, eighth most talented player on our team. If you look at just heart, you'd put him 1by a mile. Somewhere in between is where I think or players have an appreciation for him being a difference maker, us being able to win a lot of games this year.

There's no question he has been. He's gonna have his hands full tomorrow because we've put him up against the best of each conference has to offer. Sometimes it's been 6'6" guys, sometimes it's been 5'10" guys. 99% of the time he's answered the bell. He's got a little tougher task ahead of him tomorrow.

But if there's anybody I feel comfortable in doing it, it's him.

Q. What's Raymar's mindset going into this game? How has he practiced this week? How big of a concern is Robinson? Do you feel you have to stay big in this game?

COACH IZZO: I think we have to stay contact with him 'cause if you don't, those jets go off in his legs, and he kind of leaps above everybody. I think you're going to have to have contact if have a big or small guy on him. Raymar is a decent matchup for him. I think there's no doubt Robinson is maybe the best athlete at that size I've seen on tape anyway. Yet Raymar is a pretty good athlete with maybe strength, too.

So I think he is the best matchup. Raymar's had a good week of practice. He had a good week of practice last week. I think mentally, honestly I think he's been a little bit beat up. I think his confidence has been hurt a little bit. Yet in saying that, it's nothing he can't recover from. When it's hard to recover is when you've never done it before. He's done it before and he's done it on a pretty consistent basis the first 14 games of this season. He's had it back a few times, but it's been a little tougher lately.

The nose doesn't seem to be an issue. The mask is a lot better than the hockey mask he had last weekend. I still say he's a big key to our success this weekend, if we have some.

Q. How much did you know about what Goran had been through back in Serbia before he came out here, before he moved to the U.S. Also, how much of an impact do you think all that he's seen through the years has on the person he is now?

COACH IZZO: I think anytime you go through tough times, I think of my trip to Kuwait, it was a life-changing trip for me, and that was a week. He had years of it. So I think it had a serious impact.

I did not know as much about it when I first was recruiting him. I knew very little about it. But as I've gotten to know him and listen to the stories, he really doesn't talk about it a lot, he doesn't want anybody feeling sorry for him in one day. He quietly lets everybody know things aren't so bad. No matter what goes on, no matter how crazy a practice gets, no matter how bad a loss is, he has a great perspective on life, one that I'm not as good at as he is. He's taught me some things there.

He's really a great guy. I listen to a lot of coaches last night talk. You probably don't get this far unless you got some pretty good quality character guys. Each has their own story. I think you do an incredible job in the Final Four, you find the personal stories. Had when you get done, I must admit, I go back and read all those, because for every team we play, they're very interesting.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach.