Michigan State Spartans Basketball C Carson Cooper Post-Oregon 2-8-25

Transcript

00:00On the note of leadership, do you feel like Jace kind of staked his claim in that role, too, here today?

00:06Yeah, no doubt. I think, I mean, we all knew Jace was an amazing player, the talent he's got is unreal.

00:11But today it really kind of opened our eyes that, you know, someone like that, a freshman that can come in,

00:16step up when, you know, fears is out and books is out, to step up and kind of accept the pressure and accept the role

00:24It's huge for us, and it's big, too, that we're able to kind of look for him in scoring moments and big-time moments.

00:30And Trey said that he and Jace was a part of that half-time conversation. You know, what was he saying to everyone

00:37when he called you guys up in the second half?

00:39Yeah, I mean, the big thing was just, like, saying, like, we can't lose. That was the big thing.

00:44I mean, I think we all knew that, but it kind of, like, struck us in the second half, like,

00:49we can't do this. Like, we have to win, we have to win, and we have to, like, stay together and continue to play basketball here.

00:55Because we weren't playing our level of basketball in the first half, and that's what we did.

00:58And we kind of got away from just their token pressure and got them in ball screens, which is when you thrive.

01:04So we did that, and yeah, it was nice.

01:08You guys dominated the boards in the second half. What kind of, how'd the switch flip happen?

01:15I mean, we just checked. First half, I mean, granted, they made some tough shots, but a lot of them were open shots,

01:23and they hit the open shots. And we were just kind of fed up after that first half,

01:28because, I mean, we were, you know, a top five, top six defensive team in the country in defensive scoring.

01:35So for us, we kind of took that as, like, we're not doing this at the level that we should be.

01:42And then once we kind of got behind the scouting report and all that and forced them not to get comfortable and kind of take tough shots,

01:50we were able to get our running game going and get clean rebounds and go.

01:53And then also, you know, we got the offensive glass.

01:56Shaman did a good job early, especially getting on the offensive glass,

01:59because it's easier to do that when the guards are getting downhill, then shoot threes, then slong rebounds and all that.

02:05Yeah.

02:06It's got to be a good feeling when you, you know, you out-rebound UCLA, but when you win in fashion like this, it kind of pays off.

02:16Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's like a full circle. Like, granted, we didn't play great.

02:20We still had 12 turnovers, and defense wasn't great, but it still shows that we've got the grid.

02:27We've got the team to do this, so.