Coach John Beilein addressed the media shortly after Michgan’s 64-54 loss in East Lansing this afternoon. Here’s video of Beilein, followed by notes and quotes after the jump.
- Opening statement: “You can see today why Michigan State is so highly ranked. They really have a lot of ways that they can take you out of what you want to do, and also, they’ve got such girth inside and length inside that it’s really tough. They just pound the ball in the post and pound the ball in the post. Some of the teams that we’ve played we’ve been able to deal with some of that. Today we couldn’t. They only missed 22 shots and they ended up getting 12 of them back. That’s not good, but a lot of those are just a guy being taller. It’s very hard to box out on a quick tip in. They just have length and girl that we don’t have and that was a big difference in the game today.”
- On Draymond Green: “He was tremendous. I’m happy for him, because it looked like, a lot of young men, their career ends when they go down like he did the other day. You didn’t know what was going on. He’s a really good player, he’s got a great spirit about him, and he had a great game. He really played his best today.”
- On Tim Hardaway Jr., who was 1-for-10 from the field for just four points: “We were trying to do everything we can. When he struggles like that, we just have to continue to work with him and try to get him to see on the video, here’s how you can be more effective. At times he’s been tremendous in games of this magnitude. He had a bad night… Nobody’s more disappointed than him. I love coaching that kid and I can’t wait to get with him tomorrow.”
- On the difference between today’s game and Michigan’s win over MSU in Ann Arbor: “In Ann Arbor, when we had an open shot, we made shots. Today we started it with a three-layup miss again… Draymond was much better today than he was in Ann Arbor. He hit those little 16, 17-footers that we didn’t want to give him. He got them. They just smashed it inside and said, ‘Here, stop this,’ and we couldn’t do that today.”
- On MSU’s strategy to guard the ball screen: “They do a great job with it… Trey is still learning to read it, over and over. I thought he had some really good opportunities that he used and some good opportunities that he’ll learn from.”
- On how you can overcome a bigger opponent: “You have to hope that your perimeter game is spot on so that you trade two’s for layups at the basket because you spread them out. Or that you make your open shots when you have them from the outside, and you don’t force when you don’t have it… You’re gonna have to give up something to get there.”
- More on Hardaway: “He continues to have to learn from it, and sometimes people have to learn from an experience like this. You get better with just rolling with the punches a little bit more…We all have tough nights.”
