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It's
always good to start a new college basketball season with a win; it's even better when you start with a 37-point win. That's what Michigan State basketball did on Monday night, taking down Quinnipiac 96 to 59 in the Breslin Center.
After the game, Tom Izzo spoke to the media, and in typical Izzo fashion, he was animated and entertaining. You can see some of his best quotes below, along with the full video:
- On his expectations for Jeremy Fears:“As I told Jeremy, his standards for me have changed. Okay isn’t good enough anymore. Good isn’t good enough anymore. He’s got to play at an elite level.”
- On leadership:“I’ve always said, when the head dies, the body follows. When the head is great, the body follows that, too.”
- On effort and accountability:“We can make mistakes. There’s never a perfect game. There’s not going to be effort mistakes, and there’s not going to be selfish mistakes.”
- On Anton Bonke’s play:“You know what’s funny about that? I think I needed it. It’s not the players that always need it. The coach needs to have some confidence in the players. And if you respond, that’s the greatest gift a coach can get, when a player that you push responds."
- “Still struggles with movement, but he was much, much better than he’s been. And so I think those exhibition games were really healthy for us.”
- “I don’t mind him taking a three, by the way, if it’s an inside-out three. If it’s a reverse three and he’s jacking it like he’s Michael Jordan or something, I have a problem with that.”
- “He still has trouble maybe moving a little bit laterally, but he was much better than he was over the weekend. Coverage on ball screens was much better. I’d like to see him block a couple more shots when guys are driving in.”
- “Big adjustment playing in Greensboro and playing here, and that’s a big adjustment. So he’s making some progress, and right now, that’s all that matters to me.”
- On Jordan Scott:“I don’t think there’s a guy in this league that plays harder than Jordan Scott. He’s smart. He plays hard. He can shoot it. He can handle it.”
- On players learning and improving:“It’s fun to see guys come in, spend time watching film, understand what maybe they didn’t do right, and change. So, hats off to him.”
- On criticism of coaches:“I understand my job is to win. I get it. But I ain’t taking nothing from these idiots that think they know what’s going on every day, never come to practice.”
- On Twitter and recruiting:“I’m not on Twitter, and for over 12 years they’ve been telling me, ‘If you’re not on Twitter, you’re going to lose recruits.’ It would be a blessing if I lost a recruit because I’m not on Twitter.”
- On entitlement:“You know what softness comes from? Sometimes it comes from entitlement. You know what entitlement comes from? Getting stuff that you really haven’t deserved yet.”
- On Kaleb Glenn building confidence after injury:“I don’t need everybody telling him how good he is now because it was one night, but one night helps when you’ve been off that long. And we’ll see what he does tomorrow in practice. We’ll see what he does the next day, and we’ll have some fun with it.”
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This article originally appeared on Spartans Wire: What Tom Izzo said about Michigan State's opening win over Quinnipiac
