The Palace of Auburn Hills
Auburn Hills, MI
Tom Izzo had one simple request of his team. All he wanted was for them to come and play a complete game. He almost got it this afternoon. Michigan State dominated Valparaiso 65-54 and Izzo said, “I guess I was really pleased with about 33, 34 minutes of that game, first couple were a little sluggish and the last five were a little disgusting, to be honest. We didn’t do a very good job of some things, but in between I thought we guarded. I thought Keith ran it, we got the ball inside.”
He went to say, “B. J. did a good job of slashing and working on the backside of that zone at times, but I do got to give Bryce and his crew credit. I mean, watching them on film number of threes, I thought they had some open looks the first half that they didn’t make. He did, you know, a very good job. I just thought we were a little overpowering inside. We were worried about their perimeter shooting outside.”
He added, “We took advantage of our stuff inside, and they missed some shots outside. But, God, he’s got a nice team. Good guys and good shooters. So I don’t have enough good things to say about them and yet I feel pretty proud that we found a way to do what we said in the game plan, get the ball inside. Derrick got it in, got it out, and when he did get it back in, he scored in there and we did hit the offensive boards and that was the difference in the game.”
Valpo head coach Bryce Drew said of the game that, “Michigan State, excellent team. Very physical. We knew coming in we were going to have to rebound. We knew we were going to have to get back in transition, and we knew our margin was going to be small, that we were going to shoot the ball exceptionally well. I was very pleased as a coach with the looks that we got. I thought we got quality looks. And like we told our guys, sometimes we can’t control shots going in. We can control our effort, we can control our character, and I thought over the 40 minutes our effort and character made their coach proud today.”
Derrick Nix the lone Spartan senior had the game of his life. He had 23 points and 15 boards. He knows that one loss and his career is over. He said, “Well, you know, it’s my last go-around and I’m not ready to be done yet. Coach told me every day just make sure I’m having the guys ready in the hotel and the locker room. The game plan was go inside. I don’t know we did that when they doubled I was able to hit my shooters, but they just kept feeding so I just kept taking it to them.”
MSU G Branden Dawson talked about the play of his senior captain. “I’d say the same thing Nix said.
When the ball go into Nix, he does great thing in. There he’s a very good passer and the double team came he kicked it out. For him, being this is his last go-around, we feed off him and we look up to him like he’s our big brother. He tell us, you know what to do, what not to do off the court. That’s what motivate us.”
Fellow captain Keith Appling said of the play of Nix that, “I feel like it’s very important that he comes out and play the way he did each and every night because you know, he’s our only senior and he’s one of the leaders on this team. His play really dictates how we go as a team. I feel like that’s one of the motivating factors.”
Star Valpo forward Ryan Broekhoff had the unlucky job of facing Nix and said of his great game, “Yeah, he’s definitely a big guy down low. He just sealed us, you know, a little bit too low, too close to the rim. And with his side and his skill level around the hoop, it’s almost impossible to guard him. I thought we did a good job at times. I pushed him out and then we’d trap him and try to get the ball out of his hands. Over the course of 40 minutes, he found his spots and was able to convert.”
Coach Drew went on to add about Nix that, “You know, we knew he was a load coming in, and again you got to credit Michigan State. When he came in as a freshman to what he is now, you know, he’s a totally different player.”
He also was impressed how Nix distributed the ball to other teammates. “Nix gets great low post position, but I thought he really did a good job passing the ball tonight. We doubled him a couple times and he was able to get it out and hurt us for some shots. That kind of made us readjust our defense where if he wasn’t doing that then maybe we could have clashed on him a little bit more. But the nine offensive rebounds, I think you got to credit him for getting great position and then having nice good hands to grab the ball and lay it back in.”
So as Nix emerges he revealed his superstitious side as to why he thinks he is playing better. “It was real spotless. I’m a superstitious guy. Once I get to the hotel, I lay all my game stuff out the first night. And tournament time I call the people and make sure they clean the rooms when we leave for our walk-through in the lobby. That’s just how I am. It’s rubbed off on Costello. Now when he gets in there he lays all the stuff out. We make sure our bathroom’s clean before we leave and make our beds and throw away all your trash.”
For Izzo it wasn’t a great start. Valpo stuck with the Spartans and Izzo knew the reason why MSU pulled away. “Well, it was Nix. And he made, I think, one basket in that one run, but I think Gary hit two threes in a row, both on kickouts. They have to guard a little different. They doubled. I thought they did a great job doubling the post early, and then we just — we did something we haven’t been very good at. We kept going back in there. Sometimes when teams doubled us, we got away from it. We pretty much stayed with that same plan the whole game, and I thought that was good on our part.”
Nix emergence is bitter sweet for Izzo. He talked about watching his senior star grow up, “Yeah, you know, he’s — it’s kind of funny, because he’s like all of us were. The end is here and he doesn’t have an answer where he’s going next — two months from now. When you’re in a junior high, you know when you’re going to high school. When you’re in high school, you’re already signed with a college, you know where you’re going. All of a sudden, you don’t know what you’re doing, and I found a sincere — he’s almost scared sometimes like a big teddy bear, like what am I going to do. Well, play well and maybe that will help determine what you’re going to do. So he has been a little bit more that way. At times I can just see it in him and yet at times it drives him and that’s good too.”
He went on, “It has worked both ways. There’s some times you see him out there he almost looks sad and he said to me with five minutes left and I took him out and he says, Coach, you know, this is one of the last times I’m playing. You know, so I put him back in because I thought, you know what, that was — that’s kind of why I want him. I want him hungry to do that and that’s not always his personality. So I did put him back in for a couple minutes, and that’s the way it went.”
He them let everyone in on a secret that you wouldn’t have known watching Nix play today. “Nix is actually sicker than a dog, if you can believe that. He was really — I don’t know if it was nerves or what, but he was throwing up and everything early. So he didn’t have the energy even though he played well.”
I am not sure what the fans at home saw, but early in the game when Valpo was making a run Izzo brought Nix out. Was it to ask him about his health? No it wasn’t. “I told him I’m going to be checking on my health the way he was playing. He wasn’t doing anything. He missed a layup. He just — to me, he wasn’t playing very good. I’m trying to figure out guys still at the end of the year, and so I took him out. I said, you know, I’m going to put you back in, but I’m going to take you back out too. I mean, he gets it. I thought my team was a lot more in tune today for 90 percent of it, and he did miss some — he missed those two layups right off the bat, and then he just wasn’t guarding like we wanted him to. Once we put him back in, I thought he really turned a corner, so give him credit.”
How Nix responded could be the story of this game. If the Spartans make a run it could be the play of the tournament. “He showed some great patience. We talked about their double teams. This is a very well coached team, I’m telling you, they do some nice things even defensively. They tried to do what they could to take us out of our stuff, and that little matchup zone they played at the end I thought was impressive. We didn’t do a very good job in tacking it but he did a pretty good job staying in it.”
Izzo talked about what Valpo was doing that forced Nix to be patient. “Nix needed patience because they doubled. The only thing we messed up on, we thought we had B.J. on some slashing cuts and sometimes Nix gets off balance and so we try to talk about that. But, yeah, I thought the way they doubled, because it was — they came at him. They didn’t just, you know, dance around, and I thought he did a pretty good job in there.”
So Nix has the size, but the story is more than what he did today. It was everyday up until this game. Izzo couldn’t help but reflect on it. “Well, I got to give him credit. He had a good high school coach that taught him. He is a great passer. I mean, he’s a Zach Randolph kind of passer where that ball goes in. If you remember last year he was almost passing too much. You’d have a layup and he’d pass it out. And now he’s kind of finding the happy medium but he’s learning to keep the ball lower. I think that’s one thing we’ve helped him with. That ball was always up. He calls it crab dribble. Whatever you want to call it, but when you got the ball low and you’re getting doubled, you get the ball in your hands quicker and you can do stuff with it. But he sees the court very well. He’s a very cerebral — he’s one of my more intelligent basketball players. He has a great understanding of the game and a great feel for the game. Once in a while he gets a little sloppy, but for the most part he’s really good at that.”
When Nix was given a simple question his answer about handling pressure made his coach laugh. He said, “Sometimes coaches don’t understand being double teamed is frustrating when you got two big guys coming at you. You got to just take your time. They taught us how to crabs over here. So now I just crabs and want to hurry up and get it out. He just said if I get it out, it’s going to come back in. So don’t try to force shots I don’t practice on in practice.”
Nix’s comments about Coach not understanding the double team brought out a humorous comment from Izzo. He said, “There’s going to be a lot more giving on my part than taking, but if he can get a kick out of my size and his size once in a while, I’m cool with that. It’s when he’s not listening to what I’m telling him to do that I’m not cool with. You know, it’s part of the relationship we’ve grown to have. You can’t be a demanding coach if you don’t have a relationship with your players. It’s just not right. It just doesn’t work. Maybe it did work when Vince Lombardi said, Do it my way or the highway, you know. Now, guys take the highway, and so you got to give and take a little bit. You got to make them understand, you know, that when they know how much you care, then I think they adjust. And sometimes we just try to do it in a dictatorship manner, you know, Do what I say, Boy. You know, it’s not working. It’s not working. It’s just the way it is. But what’s the bottom line is, you get them to do what you say. So you got to go around it. And then, you know, I’ve grown with Derrick. Derrick’s grown with me. And I like the fact he can have a little fun up here because it’s been a grinding year for us, but it’s been a good year and we get to live another day.”
The Spartans did just that. They survived and they advanced. Now they prepare to face Memphis, thanks to a battle proven coach and a maturing senior. Neither wants it to end and both have learned that they need one another.
