State Farm Champions Classic
Madison Square Garden
Nov. 5, 2019
Kentucky vs. Michigan State
 
Kentucky Head Coach John Calipari
 
On Tyrese Maxey:
“I didn’t start him because I told him, ‘I want you to come in firing.’  And I said, ‘I want you to watch what’s happening and then you get in there and you let it go.’  Early on, he wasn’t.  Then he got into it and he started putting it in ball screens and doing different things that I’ve seen him do and what’s made him better, I don’t know if he said this, but he has to go against Ashton [Hagans] every day.  Like, it’s ridiculously hard.  Like he gets demoralized at times and I keeping telling him, ‘there’s no defender like this kid.'”
 
“What I saw today is what I saw in high school.  I had not seen it to this point.”
 
On Michigan State:
“They’re good.  Tommy [Izzo] and I said after neither one of us played great.  I mean, we just made a couple of plays late and they didn’t but, you know, my hope would be, you know, late, late, late, late we’re playing them again.   Like late, late, late like two of us left, because I’m a big fan of Tom a(Izzo)and the program and their kids and Cassisus [Winston] is terrific young man.”
 
State Farm Champions Classic
Madison Square Garden
Nov. 5, 2019 
Michigan State vs. Kentucky
 
Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo:
 
We didn’t quit, we came back and played hard after that debacle in the first half of the game. Between the free throw lines and the turnovers-for-touchdowns, we just made some crazy plays.
 
We had some lineups that don’t belong in there at this time of year. The foul trouble created that.
 
At the end, we missed four threes that were wide open.
 
I need my three big guys to play well and maybe Cash (Cassius Winston) to play pretty good. We didn’t get enough out of them. We miss Josh (Langford). But we’re going to get a lot better. I think we were younger than them (Kentucky) most of the time out there.