GAME REACTION: Michigan State's Tom Izzo: 'We laid an egg'

Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo didn’t seem as bothered by the Spartans’ suddenly cold shooting during Friday’s loss to Ohio State as he was by continued slippage on defense.

The combination of both spelled doom for the Spartans (19-12) in a 68-58 loss to the Buckeyes in the Big Ten Tournament Quarterfinals at the United Center in Chicago.

“It’s one of the more disappointing days because I thought we had a legitimate chance to win this thing,” Izzo said. “That doesn’t mean everything has gone wrong. The way we played the last three weeks, month, after all we have been through, has been pretty damn good. And today we laid an egg. Part of it was Michigan State and part of it was Ohio State.”

Michigan State had the best 3-point field goal percentage defense in the Big Ten during the regular season, but Ohio State went 10-of-19 from beyond the arc on Friday.

“We didn’t guard and we haven’t guarded and I’ve been complaining about it,” Izzo said. “I said to our media for three weeks I didn’t think our defense has been very good, and it would get you in a tournament so I guess my experience kind of gave the answer.”

Michigan State, which had been shooting an insane 58 percent from 3-point range for the three previous games and ranked as the best 3-point shooting team in the country among Power Five conference, went cold at 3-of-16 from deep in this game.

‘I JUST DIDN’T THINK WE BROUGHT IT’

No. 4 seeded Michigan State had been idle since last Saturday’s Senior Day victory over Ohio State. Meanwhile, the No. 13 seeded Buckeyes had to beat Wisconsin on Wednesday and No. 5 seed Iowa on Thursday in order to earn this meeting with the Spartans.

Any thoughts of fatigue negatively affecting the Buckeyes were in part relieved by what Izzo felt was casual play from some Spartans.

“I have to give credit to (Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann); he got his guys to play hard,” Izzo said. “I just didn’t think we brought it. I thought we had as good of three days of practice as we could have. I thought our guys were fresh, sharp. We started out the game pretty good. We get a little lead.

“You have to give them credit. They hit some incredible shots and we just couldn’t buy some.”

Ohio State became the first No. 13 seed in the history of the Big Ten Tournament to advance to the semifinals. 

Big Ten teams throughout history that have won on Wednesday and Thursday in the Big Ten Tournament were 0-5 in quarterfinal games … until Ohio State’s victory over Michigan State on Friday.

THE SENSABAUGH FACTOR

Ohio State fought through expectations of tired legs and the loss of leading scorer Brice Sensabaugh to a knee injury. He didn’t play.

“I thought with Sensabaugh out, I thought they played better,” Izzo said. “That’s not an insult to him. (They had) a better 3-point shooter in there (Roddy Gayle) and (they were) definitely (better) defensively. 

“Where fatigue is overrated is excitement and energy is underrated. I try to tell a couple of my guards that your body language, your emotion, your energy makes a difference. Tyson (Walker), I thought he played hard all game. We had some other guys that didn’t play as hard, I don’t know why.”

Tyson Walker (10 points), Joey Hauser (15 points) and Jaden Akins (10 points) joined Izzo at the podium for the post game press conference.

“These three guys played pretty hard, didn’t always make shots,” Izzo said. 

Walker was 4-of-9 from the field and 1-of-4 from 3-point range.

Akins was 5-of-13 from the field and 0-for-2 from 3-point range.

Hauser was 3-of-5 from the field and 1-of-3 from 3-point range.

“For Tyson to only get nine shots and Joey to only get five, that’s kind of our fault as a staff and we’ll look at that,” Izzo said. “Some blame goes to us on how we played a lot of credit goess to Ohio State and the job he did in getting them off the dead and competing how they did. They were good offensively and defensively and they made some shots, man. They made some shots.”

IZZO DIDN’T MENTION HOGGARD

Izzo didn’t mention AJ Hoggard by name during the post-game press conference, but the Michigan State head coach was clearly dissatisfied with the way his junior point guard played. 

Hoggard began the game 1-of-6 from the field. He had short rally midway through the second half, but finished 4-of-12 with two assists and two turnovers. 

Izzo says the team is better when Hoggard takes eight or fewer shots. Hoggard has been a lockdown defender at certain checkpoints of his career, but he struggled in the first half against Ohio State’s Bruce Thornton in this game.

“The point is a key guy,” Izzo said “Whether I had Mateen Cleaves, or Travis Walton, TumTum, they have to put pressure on the ball. We didn’t. Wo we switched it up and we got Tyson in there (to guard Thornton at the beginning of the second half) and he it started to turn things. Tyson did a hell of a job. 

“We had a chance to tie the game with that lay-up. Not only did we not tie it but we gave up two 3s in a row. 

“We played lie a front-runner team, which is probably the most disappointing to me. I do not want a front-running team but that’s kind of what we played like, for whatever reason. I don’t know but that’s what I have to get back and figure out.”

The painful loss supported one of Izzo’s favorite theorems.

“The great thing about the tournament is we all know defense wins games,” Izzo said. “We all know the scores are lower. 

“You have to be able to guard and if you don’t defend well, you give up drives. Then you don’t rebound as well. We out-rebounded them by 2. That’s not good for us.

“I just though from the head down, our energy wasn’t there. And it wasn’t fatigue. It was maybe we thought with Sensabaugh out – I warned my team about that. I didn’t think they responded that way in any shape or form in the locker room (before the game), but I had to address it.”

Meanwhile, Ohio State found the energy to limit Michigan State to 38.2 percent shooting. Some of that was due to flat-out cold shooting, and some of it was credited to Buckeye tenacity.

“Listen: they played really good,” Izzo said. “We’re not as bad as we played today. It’s been evident by what we have done int he last month. A couple of things happened early in that game – We didn’t cut out, they got a rebound. We’ve been really pushing the denvelope to try to make people understand that the little things matter.

“My pet peeve is free throw cutouts. We lost at Iowa because we did not cut people out. That went unseen. For all the 3s they hit, there was a missed free throw, we didn’t cut him out, they got a bucket. That was the diff in the game.”

Meanwhile, Ohio State majored in the little things.

“Sensabaugh is a hell of a player by the way, i just felt like maybe they played different without him,” Izzo said. “Maybe (Holtmann) really convinced them that they have to really guard. A couple of those guys put on a lot of pressure.

“Roddy (Gayle) really played well. Their center, (Felix) Okpara, did a good job on the ball screens, stepping out on that and creating some problems. We just didn’t handle it very well.

“We’ve been good on our break, the last time we played them, we scored 22 points on our break. Today I thought AJ pushed it early and then we just didn’t for whatever reason and that was part of our struggles.

“I say all that and I still say it was our energy on the defensive end (that was lacking).” 

Izzo feels Michigan State’s success on offense over the last two weeks might have had a hand in the defense becoming less effective.

“Energy is a funny thing,” Izzo said. “Sometimes when you start playing better offensively, we got casual defensively and you saw that one stretch when we weren’t. That should be 40 minutes of that. That falls on me. So I’m going to find some guys that want to do that for 40 minutes.

“Today we didn’t and the better team won. They outplayed us in every aspect.”

“I’m giving them a lot of credit but they still made some shots from heaven and that’s what happens. If they can keep that going in, they’ll keep winning.”