NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

April 1, 2000

Mateen Cleaves

A.J. Granger

Tom Izzo

Morris Peterson

COACH IZZO: Well, we had a lot of different stars playing against, boy, a very difficult team to play. To beat them four times, I take my hat off to my players. I think it took a gallant effort, especially that second half, and it's kind of funny because these three seniors have done so much and yet, you know, Charlie Bell is probably the job he did on Bryant, along with Mateen and Pete and whoever else guarded him, I thought was incredible, along with our rebounding effort, which we bounced back a little bit after a couple of average games. So I'm just pleased, and feel fortunate that we're moving on, because we beat a good team and I'm pleased for these three seniors that they get the chance of a lifetime that they've been, maybe looking for for almost 363 days, or however long it was back from the Duke game.

MORRIS PETERSON: Well, I think the first half we weren't playing as aggressive as we should have. You have to give credit to Wisconsin and their defense. I just think its, you know, we started playing with a sense of urgency. We started realizing that they could be our last 20 minutes if we don't pick it up. They got some momentum going to half time, and we just wanted to come out the second half playing aggressive. The shots started falling for us and I think we played better defense.

MORRIS PETERSON: We knew we weren't playing aggressive, we weren't playing Michigan State basketball. I think we got up to an early lead, let them come back. Half time, we were only up by a couple. We made some corrections on playing harder and trying to grind it out.

MORRIS PETERSON: Coach has been telling me the last five or six games, the last half of the season, I haven't rebounded like I should have. I just made -- wanted to make an extra effort to get some rebounds and get some things going because we looked a little sluggish. As far as my grandmother, I went down to the funeral, spent some time with my family. They told me just to go out, have a great game and just play hard. I got to give credit to my teammates, because they came out, when I got back, they came to me with open arms and really made me feel good. I just wanted to come out and play hard for her. I think we wanted to win it all for her.

MORRIS PETERSON: Yeah, after I made a shot I pointed up to just let her know that, you know, she's watching me. I just wanted to try to make an extra effort to let her know that I feel her presence. And I just think -- what was the second question?

MORRIS PETERSON: I think early on, you know, Coach made a couple plays for me and it worked for me going inside. I just saw it open, I wanted the ball. You know, just like Mateen said, last week, you know, Iowa State game and the Syracuse game, I just wanted the ball. Felt like I could make something happen on the inside.

MATEEN CLEAVES: Well, I mean, last time, you know, I was hugging all the guys, you know, and I was happy in the Big Ten Tournament, I didn't think I'd play them again. Now I know I won't play them again. That's a good thing, you know, because they play hard. You got to give them a lot of credit. They come out and they just never give up. They're going to stay in your face, bump you, they're very aggressive. You have to give them a lot of credit. Right now I'm just happy I won't have to face them again. Ever.

MATEEN CLEAVES: Well, I think, no, we still play a good defense. You know, we held them I think 47 points. We still play a good defense. The team, we play defense and Morris scored. You know, so we came out and we knew that we just had to stay in front of our guy and continue to not give up any open shots because those guys are very capable of hitting open shots. We just wanted to keep a hand in their face. When Morris gets hot, he makes our job easier because that's when you just concentrate on defense. It's like, don't shoot, just give him the ball and don't let your man score.

MATEEN CLEAVES: No, what it was, you know, we kind of got dysfunctional out there. We had made a few bad plays in a row and it was Coach telling us to slow it down. I think that was a good situation. We didn't get anything, you know, we didn't get anything going. We were just going back and forth. We didn't get anything productive. We should of slowed the ball up. You know, I heard that voice, you know, I was pushing in there. You hear that voice, he just told us slow it up. That was a good decision. We just didn't make the plays that we needed to.

MATEEN CLEAVES: Well, I mean that's been us all year. We have done a good job of just winning games, you know. Sometimes they're good wins, pretty games. Sometimes they're ugly. One thing, I mean, whenever you play Wisconsin, if you win or lose, it's gonna be an ugly game. We knew that. One thing we wanted to do was win. Like I said, once Morris came out and started knocking some shots down, you know, and once he gets hot, it's just like getting the ball. We just concentrate on stopping our guys and let Morris do all the scoring.

A.J. GRANGER: I think we started out the game really offensive rebounding well. We were missing some shots all game. We really got away from that. We quit offensive rebounding. We still weren't shooting well, shot 25 percent in the first half. I think we got away from the things that made us get the lead. We quit offensive rebounding, we were still playing defense and that kept us in the game. It was kind of characteristic of the whole game. Both teams shot 34, 33 percent for the game. It was just an ugly game.

MATEEN CLEAVES: I've watched Florida play all year, one thing they do, they play very intense defense. They're going to press you, they're going to be in your face. They have a lot of athletes, they can put the ball in the basket, they can go down, I think they have some bona fide big fellows down low, then they have guys that step outside, Miller and Dupay and those type of guys. It will be a tough matchup if we play Florida. I mean if we play North Carolina, it's going to be very tough, too, Ed Cota is doing a good job of running his team right now. Haywood is playing good right now. Forte is stepping his game up. Whoever we play it's going to be a tough game for us, so we better go home and get a lot of rest.

MATEEN CLEAVES: We knew, you know, we watched a lot of film. It seemed like every open shot he got he hit. He hit some shots with some guys in his face. Coach, you know, been preaching all year, never relax. That's a true statement for a game like this. You cannot relax because as soon as you -- I mean you could play defense for 25 seconds, if you relax for two, that's when you give up an open shot. We wanted to stay down, trail him off screens, make him earn everything he got. We just tried to minimize the open shots that Bryant got.

MATEEN CLEAVES: You know, one thing I just told him is I love him. You know, it's hard to say don't think about it, because, you know, he is. He's done a great job of dealing with it, you know, like I said, I just been myself around him. I've been trying to joke around him, I still, you know, talk about him, and, you know, just joke and do things like that. Just to keep his spirits up. You know, I'm gonna be upbeat when I'm around him. You don't want to, you know, be down and then, you know, kind of get him down. So I just told him to keep his head up, we love him, if you need anything, we'll be there. But he's done a great job of dealing with it, you know, and a lot of people ask me how would he play dealing with his grandmother's death, people can see how he played. She was -- I think she was with him out there, she carried some of those shots for him. He came out and did a great job and, you know, he didn't put that behind him. But he didn't let it distract him, he stepped it up, had a great game for us and that's why we won.

COACH IZZO: We have not done as good a job in the last couple of weeks, we've outrebounded some teams but not by the margins we were early in February. We really spent some time, had a week to work on it. We spent some time, talked about maybe spinning off them, doing a little bit more aggressive athletic movement instead of physical movement. If you are physical with Wisconsin, it really works in their favor. So we worked a couple days on hitting and spinning, instead of just hitting and standing and trying to, you know, fist fight them. We tried to spin off them and be what we are, which is more athletic.

COACH IZZO: Nope. We couldn't. I mean those are two opposites, and yet, in our league, we've played, you know, some teams like that. Not as much this year, that Iowa, since Tom Davis has left, but, you know, the pressing they do and the things they do, the way they can spot up and hit threes. You know, Billy's done a great job with that team. Both Bills have done a great job with their teams. Who we play, I'm just happy to be playing. But if it happens to be them, yes, it would be opposite styles for what we've had to prepare for.

COACH IZZO: Yeah. Yeah, there was. I mean, you know, that stretch we had where we didn't score any baskets, it was more that I thought we were taking too many threes for our team. We wanted to get the ball inside, got it in real early, Hutson did a pretty good job. I knew it was getting frustrating. Players were actually a little down at half time. That's why we didn't have our normal half time. We kind of had a little kiss-and-hug half time because we couldn't -- we didn't feel it was the time to get after them. They were a little down. It was an incredibly physical first half, I thought. And so, you know, to bounce back in the second half and do what we did, I thought was very good. We got our running game going. One of the reasons we did slow it down a little bit, we weren't getting much of a break, we had a few guys tired. When we made some subs, we really lost some intensity defensively, and that's one of the reasons we did slow it down for a little bit.

COACH IZZO: I guess your advice is set your goals today. Last year when we got beat by Duke, I think we got back to the hotel and set our goals. Wisconsin has, I believe, a lot of guys back. What, only Bryant and Duany are the seniors, so they have a lot of players back, and you know, as I said, they're extremely well-coached. I think not be afraid to set your goals. That's a gray area. Are you going to come out and say our goal next year is to win the Big Ten, win a National Championship or compete for one and whatever you want to say. It's a gray area, once you make the student, the bullseye goes on there and -- but I think if you don't make the statement, I'm not sure you get back to that level.

COACH IZZO: You know, I did. But Morris has, I've been saying this about his basketball, now it's about his life. He really has great parents. I say that. I mean he has parents -- everybody I think has great parents. But his parents are, you know, were there for him. They were in the locker room with us when we told him. They've been very supportive. His mother has done an incredible job of being supportive of his goals and dreams, you know, you wonder how Morris has handled it. I wonder how his mother has handled it. She's had to go from the top to the bottom in one night. She drove, I think, all night from Mississippi to here. I opened my curtains to go for a little jog at 6:30 this morning and her car was pulling up and they were unloading. So I wonder how she has handled it. She's the warrior in this thing.

COACH IZZO: We just felt like we had to make some adjustments. The adjustments would be, we thought we could handle -- we could hurt them on pindown picks and make sure we kept moving. The minute we became nonathletic, it really worked to their advantage. And so, yeah, we wanted to get our running game going more but we felt if we defended a little bit better from the inside out, we did get some penetration, they would take maybe more threes or more outside shots, we could get cleaner rebounds, where it would help our fast break, then we got into the half court, we were going to try to post up Pete a little bit, that was an adjustment we made at half time. We were trying to get him coming off screens down around the block instead of up around the top. I felt we were taking too many threes. We asked them what they thought would work, then we made the adjustments and, you know, I don't think you people can appreciate, honestly, how good a coach this guy is. Because he had adjustments for everything we did. I've never seen a guy change his offense in the middle of the season as effectively as they did when we played them the first time, second time or make adjustments with us outrebounding by 27, they outrebounded us by 3 six days later. In the end, we might have wore them down a little bit. I think our athletic ability might have helped us a little bit in the rebounding area. But, boy, I still think they're going to be awfully good next year. And were awfully, awfully good this year.

COACH IZZO: I think they definitely are. Forte is better. Even though he came off the big Maui tournament, I'm not sure he's as confident as he is now. Haywood is playing better than he was then. The Peppers kid, at least the games I've seen, I haven't watched them, I don't ever look ahead much, I watched a half of each game, that's what I've done the whole tournament on the other teams we could play if we won. My assistants did a lot of work on it, I've watched one half, that's it. But what I've seen on TV, Peppers really helps him. He gives him another athlete with some physical ability and when we played them the first time, Lang was not -- I think he was hurt, not playing very well. So, yeah, they're a lot different team.

COACH IZZO: You know, Charlie, actually, was pretty good tonight. Andre is, he's a warrior, he's a tough kid. So I'm not as concerned as I was going in, you know, to last week for Charlie, and maybe tonight with Andre. I thought he withstood it pretty well, both guys.

COACH IZZO: You know, he wanted the ball. Very seldom has Pete really asked for the ball. I said I think that's my fault. When he was a freshman I used to kid him about how many shots he took. We kind of molded him and worked with him. Now he almost becomes too unselfish. He said he thought we could post up, he wanted the ball down low, and the other players were obliged to get it to him. So, yeah, I think Morris realizes, like all seniors do, that the end is near and he'd sure like to go out on a positive note.

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