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NCAA MEN'S REGIONALS SEMIFINALS & FINALS: SYRACUSEMarch 26, 2015Buddy HieldLon KrugerRyan SpanglerTaShawn ThomasSYRACUSE, NEW YORK Q. For Buddy, just the experience to be here in the Sweet 16 and knowing that you've got 'Tum Tum' on the other side. BUDDY HIELD: It's a fun experience. When I first came here, all three of us, we never played in this environment before. We're just happy to be here. And playing against 'Tum Tum' is a fun deal. Me and 'Tum Tum' used to play together. We have a great friendship. I consider him my brother, and we know each other's family. It's just fun matching up with someone from the Bahamas. Someone's going to lose tomorrow, and I hope it's not me. Q. Buddy, just to follow up on that, I read that 'Tum Tum', that you hosted him on a visit to Oklahoma. How close were you to getting him on your team a few years ago? BUDDY HIELD: I don't know. I told 'Tum Tum', "Go wherever is best for 'Tum Tum'. Don't go where you think is good for Buddy. I know we are good friends but do what's best for you. You have to make your own decisions. What you do isn't going to hurt me. So you do what's best for you." Q. Just your general thoughts making it to the Sweet 16. You personally experienced some disappointment in Kansas City. How are you feeling? RYAN SPANGLER: We're feeling pretty good right now. We picked up the last couple of weeks. We've strung together some good wins. Figured out how to get some close wins out. We've worked hard for this all year. We're not going to let it go to waste right now. Q. TaShawn, Michigan State's always had a reputation for good rebounding, defense rebounding. How tough is your responsibility on Friday night? Not just scoring on offense, but making sure that they don't dominate the boards, that you sort of neutralize them in the paint. RYAN SPANGLER: That's a big part of our game plan. They get a lot of easy buckets off of offensive rebounding, that and transition. One of me and TaShawn's biggest goals is block out every time, and give nothing up easy. TASHAWN THOMAS: Like Ryan said, it's going to be a tough task to try to contain them. They go to the boards every time. Watching the film, I don't remember any time where they didn't go to the boards. So it's going to be tough for me and Ryan, D.J. and Khadeem have to box out every single time. We can't take any plays off. Q. For any of the players, you played Michigan State last year. How similar does this team look to the one you faced last season? Are there any teams that you could compare them to that you played this season? RYAN SPANGLER: Yeah, I think they're a little similar, the same as last year, but I think they're different, too. This year they get out and run pretty well. Last year and this year, they get offensive rebound the ball pretty well. They've got some new guys stepping up for them, hitting shots. So they're similar but a lot different. BUDDY HIELD: Like, what Ryan said, the difference is they had Adreian Payne last year. They have guards that can score. They get out in transition. We played a lot of good teams this year. It's fun because we get to compete against excellent teams, and we're up for the challenge. Q. TaShawn, this is your first Sweet 16. With Lon, he's been here before. Does he discuss past experiences? And how much does his experiences prepare you guys as a team for this stage? TASHAWN THOMAS: Yeah, Coach brings it up sometimes, just here and there, talk about how he made it to the Sweet 16 and things like that. But he'll just tell us, he'll just keep on telling us, our guys earned it to be here. I'm just going to help guide you guys to what I think and reach out to the next win. If we just keep trusting in Coach, we're going to keep riding it out until the wheels fall off. Q. Guys, I know you can't overlook, but still you're also a basketball fan. I'll start with you, Buddy. I couldn't help but notice the top two seeds in this region got knocked out last week. You're the highest seed left in the East. You've got a real opportunity. How does that make you feel? BUDDY HIELD: It's good, but Coach always says, we are the higher seed, but we expect to win in the Tournament, not through rankings. We've just got to go out and compete as hard as we can. I know Michigan State is a good team, and we're going to bite and scratch and do everything to get a win. RYAN SPANGLER: Yeah, Coach has been telling us all week that we earned this seed. We've been playing great teams all year. There's another good team tomorrow in our way, and we're going to have to go out there and fight and get another win. Q. Ryan, the attention to the defense and how you guys have played at the defensive end, how much of a credit does that get in comparison to what happened last year and what got you this far this year so far? RYAN SPANGLER: Defense is the reason we're this far this year. Last year and this year, we've always been able to score. Last year we couldn't get stops when we wanted to, but I think the last two games, first and second round, we got stops when we had to. That's how we won those games. The rest of this year, we're going to concentrate on defense. We're going to have defense take us all the way. Q. Buddy, 'Tum Tum' has had a big impact for Michigan State off the court in the locker room as well. What was he like when you met him? Why does he have that sort of effect in the locker room and on teammates? BUDDY HIELD: Just his personality. That's how 'Tum Tum' is, he lights up the room. He's like that. When I see him, he's always fun and energetic and full of energy. He's a fun kid to be around. You always want that teammate on your team to get you riled up and energy. There's no surprise being here at Michigan State. He was doing the same thing for us. He's always been one of the guys yelling and having fun out there, and being energetic. So it feels good to know he's doing that at Michigan State, too. COACH KRUGER: It's great to be here. Obviously, winning NCAA Tournament games is very difficult, and I feel very good about our guys last weekend winning a couple. Obviously, earning the right to play Michigan State is a tough challenge, tough chore. Tom's clubs always play great. We've got our hands full. Our guys have a great deal of respect for what they're doing. We haven't played against a team like that all year in the Big 12. Michigan State is great it in a lot of different ways. Transition is super, rebound the ball well, execute things on the offense and stingy defensively. Tom's clubs always are. The challenge is big but one we look forward to. Q. Coach, you're the highest seed here, but are you the favorite? COACH KRUGER: We don't concern ourselves too much with that. To hear everybody talk, sounds like maybe we're not. It's okay; it's nothing we can control. Again, we have to play well to win. If we don't play well, we're not going to win. That's the way it should be in the Sweet 16. Again, as far as a favorite or not, I don't think that's a distraction to our guys. They know we have to play better than we did last week, and we'll keep playing better each week throughout the year. We've got a big challenge this weekend. Q. Lon, when Tom Izzo was beginning to build Michigan State, you were at Illinois, and then you guys were both up for that Hawks' job at the same time. Do you ever think how your life would have been different if you had stayed one place and tried to do that there, and things had gone differently in 2000? COACH KRUGER: I don't stop to think about it too much. Our routes have been a little different. I didn't plan on making changes that I've made. They just occurred, and they've all been good. They've all been -- we still have great friends, had great experiences everywhere. When we left, it was under good terms. We were excited about the new opportunity when we did leave. Back when Tom was talking about the Hawks' job, they were courting him. We were talking a lot about him taking it. One day he called and said, "Well, I'm not going to, but I recommended that you should." So it was kind of a little flip there. He was kind of bouncing questions off me at that time. So I don't know if I should thank him or not. But it was a good experience. Other than getting fired in Atlanta, it was all good. Yeah, I wouldn't change anything. Q. Lon, to kind of piggyback on that, Tom's taken a more stable route in staying at one school. He was impressed at how you've gone a more indirect route in getting to the Sweet 16 at a number of places. What do you make of what Tom's done just for this length of time? COACH KRUGER: He's done great. The more you look at it, usually coaches are changing jobs a few times in their career, and Tom hasn't. He's done fantastic. He's won more games there probably in the last decade than anyone else has, certainly in the Tournament. His teams always play well. He's got that winning culture. When you get that culture that Tom helped develop, Tom has taken it to another level clearly. It's great value in recruiting, great value in that culture to maybe help you win games that you perhaps wouldn't otherwise. The accomplishments the players have, the swagger that they play with, all that comes as a result of what Tom has done there and the good players that he's had. They're probably playing as well as anyone in the country over the last month. I really think they've peaked at the right time, as his clubs often do. They seem to be playing with great confidence, that swagger that his clubs oftentimes do, and getting great results. Q. Can you detail, as briefly as you want to, just how it was that you guys came across Spangler and how you were able to convince him to come back home? COACH KRUGER: Very simply, Ryan had signed with Gonzaga the year before we got there, so we were there in time to recruit him. He really enjoyed Gonzaga. He loved the coaching staff. He loved the teammates. It was just too far from home. So he made the decision to leave Gonzaga, and obviously asked if we'd be interested, and we naturally were. It's worked out great for us and great for him. He's able to practice a lot. Extended family is at games. It's fun to watch not only the success he's had, but his family and friends share that experience with him. That's one of the neat parts of coaching is we get to watch young people kind of go through their college experience, have a great time, share it with family and friends, and grow and mature. It's been a good story for him. Q. Coach, Ryan was up there saying the difference this year from last year is the defense for Oklahoma. Can you talk about developing the defense and how such a team that's known for up-tempo play can also be such a great defensive team? COACH KRUGER: We're much better defensively this year. Last year most of the guys that were on the club last year realized, coming out of the NCAA Tournament, weren't built to get the stops that we needed, to get the extended play defensively that we needed, the big rebound that we needed. So it wasn't a tough sales job. They were bought in last spring, through summer, through fall. They've obviously made big strides. We've been much more consistent defensively than we have been on the offensive end. We've been a little spotty offensively. We've had droughts at times. We need to be a little more consistent on the offensive end, but continue to be solid on the defensive end. Q. Lon, how has Tom's teams changed over the years from back when you were at Illinois to what you see now? Does he still play the same style, same brand? How have they changed? COACH KRUGER: They're more similar than they are different. His club has always had the reputation of really getting the ball down the court quickly. You really got to do a good job in transition defensively. And yet if you do that, they're still able to change gears and then execute very well on the half-court. This club can do that. They've always had a reputation for rebounding the ball well. This club maybe is not as big as some of his teams, but they're very aggressive on the boards. And then defensively, very solid man defense. They don't get real extended, but they don't give up things easy. They make you earn everything. Ask me that about Tom's club 15 years ago, I probably would have said the same things. So pretty similar. Q. Coach, to go along with that consistency theme, with the two wins in Columbus, do you notice this team really on a path up, maybe playing your best basketball of the year on both ends? COACH KRUGER: This club's won, what, 10 or 11 of the last 13 or 14. We've been playing as well as we could. Not always a good 40 minutes, but we played well enough to win. I felt we really grew a lot in the game against Dayton. We got through a good Albany club on the first night, not playing like we really wanted to, partially because Albany did things they wanted to. And I thought it was a very hostile crowd. It was a road game for us. Dayton made that good run, and we kind of stayed together and collected ourselves and made a good run in the last ten minutes. I thought coming out of that, any time you can have that celebration, that spontaneous feeling good about what each other's doing, that obviously helps you grow a little bit. I felt coming out of that, we were changed a little bit in terms of understanding and the confidence in each other. Not that it's been a bad thing, but it just continued to grow all year, and I thought it was a big jump there in that Dayton game. Q. This being your fourth team to take into the Sweet 16, not to say that you anticipate making it to the Sweet 16, but how much more special does each next one become for you when you look back on all these years and to be sitting at this podium right now? COACH KRUGER: I think the more you do it, the more you realize how difficult it is to do. Especially today when the parity is there. You look through the seedings, and all those games pretty much toss out regardless of the seeds. If you get through the first few, everyone else is pretty even. So probably a greater appreciation today. When you're younger, you kind of feel like, well, we did it, we'll do it again, and it's just not that easy. Probably a greater appreciation the older or more experienced you get. Q. Just talking a lot about the up-tempo style of play that you have. As a basketball fan, do you prefer to watch games that move quickly like that? COACH KRUGER: Absolutely. I thought the group -- I felt last year, with our charge to the officials, we were taking steps in freedom of movement, more pace, hands off the ball handler, less contact, less body-checking, less grabbing and holding. This year we reverted back. We've gone right back to where we were before last year, and I don't know why. It's not the officials' fault. We just haven't given the directive that you need to to get that freedom of movement and all the things we were looking for a year ago. I have no idea why we changed course and went back to where we were. Hopefully, it's something still up for discussion. NBA did it 12 years ago, 13 years ago, and their game took off. As a game, I think we have to be concerned about the entertainment factor and what we're competing with and where it's going to be five years from now, ten years from now, and it's not going to be with the 45-43 games. That's just my opinion. Q. Coach, in reference to the four teams in the Sweet 16 and what you've accomplished in your career, what are your thoughts on that? How big of an accomplishment is it for you? COACH KRUGER: I don't stop to really think about it at all. It doesn't change much what we're doing, of course. I don't think anyone else is that concerned about it either. We've had good players. You don't get to Sweet 16 without good players. We've been fortunate to be in some really good places with really good players and win a couple of games, but I don't think too much about it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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