Oakland visited East Lansing on Monday, Dec. 18, to take on the Michigan State Spartans in front of nearly 15,000 at the Breslin Center. The Golden Grizzlies hung around for a good chunk of the first half, but a disastrous first few minutes of the second half led to an easy win for Tom Izzo and the Michigan State Spartans.
In 22 tries, Greg Kampe still has yet to get the best of Izzo, regardless of venue. Here’s everything the Oakland head coach had to say after the loss.
Opening statement
“I’m as disappointed as I’ve ever been coming out of this place. The first three to five minutes of the second half really angered me — changed the game. Changed the game. We let Walker have a one-pass wide-open three to start the second half. Our team is based on our defense. Our defense in the first half was phenomenal. We gave up four run-outs because we felt sorry for ourselves because we can’t make a shot. We’re not smart enough to understand it’s a 40-minute game, and you can go out and shoot poorly for a while and get it going. Those four layups were the difference in the half.
We had a game plan to stop Walker. I didn’t care what anybody else did — Walker was not going to beat us. We had a guy that made three consecutive errors to start the second half defensively that allowed bang, bang, bang. But when you have a game plan to stop a guy, and they throw a one-pass three to him, and he’s wide open, that’s probably not real good coaching, so I guess I’ll take the blame for it. But it was awful. And it changed the game.
Our inside play is really good. We start the game with a missed jab at two feet, got hurried, missed a four-footer, and we felt bad for ourselves. And we played offense that way. Had a great 3-point shooter go 1/10 — you’re going to have nights like that. No big deal. But you don’t do what we did defensively to start the second half. We were fortunate to be in the game the way we shot the ball in the first half. And we came out and did that. We got going offensively in the second half, too, because of the pace of the game, but we weren’t going to win a game like that. You’re only going to win it at the pace of the first half in this building. And I thought we did all that right until the start of the second half.”
How he plans to incorporate Tuburu Naivalurua in the upcoming games
“The reason we’ve got a chance to be really good is because we’re a great rebounding team. How many teams come into the Breslin Center and get 16 offensive rebounds? Look at those stats. I’ll bet you there aren’t many over the years that have done that. He was the jewel of our recruiting class. The problem was because of some transfer issues, he didn’t practice. His first practice was the day after the Ohio State game. That zone is pretty complicated. Right? And for him to learn that zone, you’ve got to be learning one position. Okay? And that’s Chris Conway’s position. Well, Chris is pretty damn important to us. So his minutes are limited. Now that we’re a month into the season and we had this past week, we’ve got him more on the wing and the nail. After Wednesday’s game, we got a break again, and now we’ll get him more reps in practice, and pretty soon, I’ll be able to substitute him for multiple people. He’s a guy I want to play 20-25 minutes. Unfortunately, because of that practice situation, I can’t do that. He doesn’t know 80% of our sets. He knows one position. And that’s just unfortunate. But it is what it is.”
How his team is better for playing tough non-conference games
“Well, we led Ohio State for 34 minutes, a one-point game with a minute to go and the ball in our hands. Illinois, we were tied. We held them to 63 points. Who’s going to hold Illinois at home to 63 points? Our defense is really good. It’s a tie game with six, six-and-a-half minutes to go, and we played offense for four minutes like we did tonight, and didn’t score for four minutes, and it got away from us. That’s going to happen in Big Ten arenas. We play those games for a lot of reasons. One is the money. Two is because Izzo and I believe the same thing — you make your team better — it’s not about a coaching record or a record or anything, it’s about being good in March. And at our level, the only way you get to the NCAA Tournament is to win three games in March. And so, I would love to be 11-1 and not play anybody, and this team could be that, but that’s not going to make us better in March so we’re going to play the best teams we can play. We’re going to try and make as much money as we can make, we’re going to play on national TV as much as we can — that’s just the philosophy of the program.
I’m really angry right now. I’m angry at them, and they know it. And there haven’t been many locker rooms this year that I’ve been angry at them. It wasn’t about the outcome, it wasn’t about anything. It was about the way we played the first five minutes of the second half. It had nothing to do with missing shots. I’m not mad at Gohlke because he’s 1/10, I’m mad that he didn’t check out that kid on two rebounds. The things that will make us win, I’m mad about not about the offense.”
On Blake Lampman first showing up as a walk-on
“I didn’t even know his name. The first practice, I’m like, ‘I’m sorry, what was your name, again?’ I took him because, you guys know Travis Bader, right? Because Travis Bader called me on the phone and said, ‘I’ve got the next me.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, right.’ And he goes, ‘No, I’m serious.’ And I go, ‘Bring him here, I’ll let him walk on.’ And I told him we were going to Spain or Greece that summer — it was five years ago, and it was our trip — and I told him, ‘You’re not going to Greece, but you can go through summer practice.’ A week after practice started, I called him in my office and I said ‘Would you like to go to Greece?’
It’s funny, we were watching some tape of him the other day when he was a freshman, and we looked at a game and couldn’t believe the difference in him, physically. He’s one of the hardest-working guys I’ve ever been around. He’s very intelligent. He could coach the team. When he was injured, and out during those four weeks he was out, he was coaching the team in practice. He was standing right next to me, and I gave him the defense. That’s how intelligent and how good he is. I love him. I love him as a person, I love him as a player, I love everything about him. I wish I had 50 Blake Lampmans. But, he’s worked his ass off. That’s why he’s doing what he’s doing.”
On guarding Tyson Walker in the second half
“A guy made a mistake. And one mistake became two, and two mistakes became three, and then he got in the flow. And that shot he hit for the four-point play — he ain’t making that in the first half. But he had made a couple shots. If you’re out there, and you’re an athlete, it’s no different than a quarterback in football, man. When the Bears were rushing Goff, those throws were off, right? When he had time to sit back and make one, boy, the confidence in him. The pass to Hockenson for the touchdown, that was a bullet, right? But it’s all up here. And Walker got that going. And you can’t let a player like that do that. There had to be four eyes on him every time he touched the ball.
That was our terminology: four eyes on him every time. He’s got to see four eyes, so he’ll give it up. So, the first catch of the second half: no eyes. The second catch of the second half: no eyes. So, all of a sudden it was a 14-point game, and it’s not ‘Oh, we’re going to win anyways, it’s Oakland, whatever.’ But if it’s a six or five-point game, and we double him, and he gives it up, I don’t think the other guys are making shots. I just don’t. He is. He is a great, not a good player, a great player. And we had to have that. And as soon as that broke down, we were done. And I’m angry about that because that’s going to be the difference for us, winning and losing: our defense. We can’t make those mistakes. I told them before the game: You don’t need your ‘A’ game to win this. You need your ‘A’ brain, but you don’t need your ‘A’ game. And we had about a D-minus brain for about five minutes there.”
How different MSU is when getting production in the paint
“If they’re doing that against a Big Ten, man-to-man team, you guys won’t lose many games. They’re going to get that today because our game plan was to go to them. Now, what we were going to do, if we continued what we did in the first half, the adjustment we made in the second half was as soon as they caught it in there, we were running a guy and doubling them. And we thought they would turn it over. That was our game plan. Whether that would’ve happened, we never got to see. When you’re down 15 or 16, you have to make some changes, and you have to be a little more aggressive, and we let two guys down there on one. Because we were trying to run through passing lanes and get some juice, get a steal. We got a couple of them, but we didn’t convert them. So, we allowed that to happen. I don’t think I can compare that with what Illinois will do or what somebody like that, because nobody is going to play the way we play.”
