Below is a partial transcript from Michigan State men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo’s opening statement from his postgame presser that followed the Spartans’ win over Niagara on Thursday night.

Below is a partial transcript from Michigan State coach Tom Izzo’s opening statement from his postgame presser:

Izzo: “I thought we were really average the first couple of minutes. Give them credit, they made those three 3s right in a row. And then, it was a strange first half. We missed five dead-nut layups. Jeremy [Fears Jr.], Frankie [Fidler] missed two … Carson [Cooper] missed one and Jase [Richardson] missed one. And I mean, layup layups. And you look at that, you say, ‘Big deal,’ but that’s 10 points, and, really, probably would have given us a bigger lead at halftime. I was impressed with them early. I thought they were better than the team we played the other day as far as matchups for us. We had to play Book [Xavier Booker] and a little bit [of] Jaxon [Kohler] on their 4-man, who was a 6-5, 6-4 guard that could take it to the rack. So, that was good practice for what’s coming up next, and I thought that was good. We didn’t turn the ball over much. We had two late in the game. Got to the free-throw line. I think another big stat was 16 offensive rebounds, but getting 21 points off those rebounds. Fast break is getting better and better. Shooting was — still missed some good shots, but it’s starting to creep forward. And 20 assists out of 35 baskets isn’t as many, but we had a lot of driving things and layups that you don’t get an assist on. We rebounded pretty well, the second half, I thought we played pretty well.”

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