March 13, 2007

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Practice Day Press Conference Quotes

MILWAUKEE (AP) - After working side-by-side for five seasons, coaches Tom Crean and Tom Izzo will face each other for the first time when eighth-seeded Marquette and No. 9 seed Michigan State meet in a first-round NCAA tournament game at Winston-Salem, N.C., on Thursday.

Crean, who was an assistant alongside Izzo for one season at Michigan State under Jud Heathcoate, also was an assistant at Pittsburgh and Western Kentucky before returning to the Spartans to be Izzo's top assistant for four seasons.

After helping Michigan State reach the 1999 Final Four, Crean took the Marquette job and has led the Golden Eagles to four NCAA tournaments in eight seasons, highlighted by a surprising run to the 2003 Final Four.

"We've dodged this bullet so many years," Crean said. "What we've always said is, we'd never schedule each other. And if it happens during the tournament, it happens.

"Well, here it is. So eight years in, we're going to do it."

While Izzo admitted it would be "weird" to match up against a person as familiar as Crean, he appears focused on this game after a challenging season which ended with Michigan State's 10th consecutive NCAA tournament appearance.

"The committee has a way of doing that," said Izzo, who has four Final Four appearances and led Michigan State (22-11) to the 2000 national championship. "That's fine with me. I really don't care. I'm just happy to be in."

Marquette (24-9), ranked 20th in Monday's AP poll, lost five of its last eight games heading into the NCAA tournament. The Golden Eagles have been led by the three-guard attack of sophomores Dominic James, Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews.

McNeal, the team's second-leading scorer and best overall defender, has been ruled out for this game due to a sprained thumb that also sidelined him for the regular-season finale and two Big East tournament games.

"Would we love it? Would he love it? No question," Crean had said Sunday. "Are we going to go into the week planning on having him? Probably not. But we'll just wait and see how it turns out, what goes on with it. We'd love to have him."

Without McNeal, the Golden Eagles have relied more on reserves Dan Fitzgerald and freshmen Lazar Hayward and David Cubillan. Fitzgerald scored 20 points in each of the two Big East tournament games, Hayward averaged 12.5 points in those contests and Cubillan is the team's top 3-point shooter at 42.9 percent (45-for-105).

James, a first-team all-Big East selection, averages a team-high 14.8 points but is shooting just 26.4 percent from 3-point range. He had 31 assists to just nine turnovers in his final four games, and is just shy of a 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio.

After losing starters Maurice Ager, Shannon Brown and Paul Davis to the NBA draft and graduation, Izzo challenged Drew Neitzel to be the focal point of the offense this season. The senior guard responded by shooting 41.7 percent from 3-point range and averaged 18.1 points and 4.3 assists to earn first-team all-Big Ten honors.

"I kind of took a back-seat role the first couple of years, and I was waiting for this opportunity," Neitzel said. "I had to make the most of it. I thought if we could make the tournament, it would be a great season. But now, we're not done yet."

Neitzel was able to move to shooting guard with the emergence of sophomore Travis Walton, who averaged 6.6 points and 5.5 assists at point guard.

Michigan State is fourth in the nation in scoring defense, limiting opponents to 56.7 points per game, and tied for seventh in defensive field goal percentage at 38.3 percent.

These teams played two common opponents in Oakland and No. 6 Wisconsin. Both had easy wins over Oakland and struggled against Wisconsin, with Marquette losing at home and Michigan State dropping two of three to its Big Ten rival.

The winner of this game will play either No. 1 seed North Carolina or 16th-seeded Eastern Kentucky in the second round on Saturday.