Michigan State returned to Breslin Center on Sunday for its first home game in a little more than two weeks. Visiting Northwestern was as good as advertised defensively, flustering the Spartans for considerable stretches of their 70-63 loss.
The Wildcat guards were no slouches, either, with Boo Buie – a noted thorn in MSU’s side for several years now – going for 20 points, Chase Audige adding 15 and Ty Berry scoring 11 at the top of Northwestern’s scoring chart.
The loss drops MSU to 5-4 overall and 0-1 in Big Ten play. The Spartans hit the road Wednesday to face Penn State before diving back into the rest of their non-conference schedule and resuming Big Ten play in January.
Everything MSU head coach Tom Izzo said in his post-game press conference is below:
OPENING STATEMENT
“Well, I thought we got out-toughed. I thought that team played about as well and hard, those guards really played hard. Just don’t have the depth yet when Mady and especially Tyson got in foul trouble that first half when it was a seven-point lead. We just didn’t respond very well.
“I changed the lineup for a reason, it was to light a fire under AJ for not doing the things I need done as a point guard. To his credit, he responded extremely well, about the only guy that played with the toughness and sense of urgency you need. I thought Tyson got taken out of it with the fouls. The number of ball screens they ran, when Mady was in there it was pretty good, but we struggled with other guys.
“Tried to play Jaden because we were gonna play him and decided to start him, number one, because of AJ, number two, I might’ve started him in front of somebody else but once he warmed up I didn’t want him sitting there for 6, 7 minutes. I was hoping he’d play 16-18 minutes; he played 22. A couple times I thought we did a poor job getting him out of there. I thought he was tired, he gave up some baskets.
