WATCH: Michigan State's Tom Izzo Speaks After Loss to Wisconsin
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- No. 7 Michigan State met its match when it was defeated by No. 18 Wisconsin, 77-74, in Saturday's Big Ten Tournament semifinals.
It was a battle to the very end, but it was ultimately the Badgers who were able to finish on top.
The contest could have gone either way, and a few mistakes here and there made the difference for the Spartans in the end.
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo addressed media members in the locker room after the game. You can watch below:
Below is a transcript from Izzo's opening statement from his postgame presser, which occurred at the podium shortly after:
Izzo: "Well, I'm disappointed, and I think it shows you how little things can make a difference. We preach that all the time, but sometimes it doesn't go through. But I'm proud of these guys, especially these two [Jase Richardson and Jeremy Fears Jr.]. Coop [Carson Cooper] played awfully well, did a lot of things that we asked him to do. I think Jeremy is playing his best basketball in the last three, four games. Jase has had an eight-, 10-game run where he's playing phenomenal basketball. You've got to give some credit to Wisconsin. [John] Tonje was -- he definitely, along with [Braden] Smith, were the best players in the league at that time. He played like one of them today. I thought we did a pretty good job on him most of the way, and he cut loose a little bit, and that's what great players do. And yet I thought our game plan, I thought we -- you know, they didn't get 19 3s. How many did they get, eight, nine? And they got a couple of those late. We just made some mistakes in some key runs, and that was the difference in the game. Both teams had seven turnovers. That's a hell of a basketball game. We outrebounded them, shot pretty much similar, shot pretty well from the line, so did they. So, probably a hell of a basketball game except for the couple things that happened that probably cost us."
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