Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast: Complete Recap of Spartans' Loss to Kansas
Michigan State men's basketball had a tall task going into its matchup with No. 1 Kansas, a game it couldn't afford to struggle in any areas it could control.
But that's what happened as the Spartans went 3-of-24 from deep. The lack of success from beyond the arc proved consequential in the defeat, and ultimately made the difference.
Michigan State took it to the Jayhawks, making it a hard-fought contest to the very end.
The Spartans' scoring effort was led by senior forward Frankie Fidler, who posted 15 points in the loss, and junior forward Jaxon Kohler, who tallied 12.
Both players led the team in rebounding as well, with Kohler bringing down 12 boards and Fidler collecting eight.
On this recap episode of the Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast, our Aidan Champion breaks down what went wrong for Michigan State, as well as some of the positives.
You can watch below:
Below is a transcript from Michigan State coach Tom Izzo's opening statement of his postgame press conference:
Izzo: "It's hard to figure out what to say. I think Bill [Self] said it best to me after: Neither one of
us shot it very well. If I would have told you that we were going to do the job on Adams that we did and Harris and Mayo, I thought we had a good chance to win. But our key guys didn't play very well either, and some of that's got to be their defense. I thought we both had some open shots we all missed. But I was really disappointed to get outrebounded because that's what we do here, and we start the game with five turnovers, I think, in the first five minutes. Then we settle down at the 6-minute mark, it's a two, three-point game, and then they went on a little spree. They're a good team. I don't think they're anywhere near what they're going to be. I think they're going to be really good. Their shooters didn't shoot very well either in [Rylan] Griffen, [Zeke] Mayo, and [Dajuan] Harris, [AJ] Storr. I mean, even [David] Coit, I've seen him shoot the ball really well. [Hunter] Dickinson played well, give him credit. What I really liked about Mayo -- I don't know him personally. I know he's a shooter, but when you shoot it like he does and he goes 2-for-8, 0-for-3, and honestly not very good, but he gets 10 rebounds and 6 assists, that's a credit to Bill, his staff, and how they get a kid who's not playing well to do other things to help his team win, and I thought they did a phenomenal job of that. I give Bill a lot of credit for that. I did not get that out of a couple of my guys. They didn't shoot it well, they didn't rebound it well, and they didn't guard it well. All in all, I think there will be some disappointing things watching the film. We missed a dunk, just can't do that in big games. But there's some positives that come out of this. We played a very good team. We're ahead in the game most of the way, and now we've got to figure out how to make some shots."
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