I happened to find an episode of Doug Gottlieb's All Ball podcast from back in April in which he interviews Mich St assistant coach Dane Fife. They didn't talk a ton about the final four game, but they did a little bit.
Gottlieb asked Fife, who played for Knight, if he thought our team was what it would look like if Coach Knight was coaching in his prime (defense, motion offense, toughness). Fife said "With the players they had, they had men. They had players who were willing to lay down their bodies for the betterment of the team."
Fife said he was fascinated with the motion offense, even though we didn't run it a ton against them. Gottlieb and Fife agreed that we got tired late in the game and it hurt our offense.
Gottlieb said he talked to Tech "guys" after the game and asked why they stopped running offense and they said "dude we were tired! Guarding them is hard."
Fife then said that he thought that because the game was such a war, whichever team won would have a tough time in the national championship game. He mentioned Owens getting hurt and said he thought it impacted us against UVA. "We did a number on them as they did a number on us."
"Their toughness, it reminded me of Coach Knight's first team that he talks about. It was a tough, rugged, blue-collar, 1-to-5 team. I think that if you get a chance to ask Coach Izzo, he'll readily admit that team was as tough if not tougher than us."
Fife thinks that it hurt that they took Aaron Henry out with two fouls in the first half. Thinks it forced them to keep McQuaid on the floor too long, which wore him out - kind of links it to him missing the 3 to tie it up late in the 2nd half.
If you find the All Ball Podcast from April 12th, you can listen. They start talking about the final 4 game with only about 9:30 left in the podcast.
Gottlieb asked Fife, who played for Knight, if he thought our team was what it would look like if Coach Knight was coaching in his prime (defense, motion offense, toughness). Fife said "With the players they had, they had men. They had players who were willing to lay down their bodies for the betterment of the team."
Fife said he was fascinated with the motion offense, even though we didn't run it a ton against them. Gottlieb and Fife agreed that we got tired late in the game and it hurt our offense.
Gottlieb said he talked to Tech "guys" after the game and asked why they stopped running offense and they said "dude we were tired! Guarding them is hard."
Fife then said that he thought that because the game was such a war, whichever team won would have a tough time in the national championship game. He mentioned Owens getting hurt and said he thought it impacted us against UVA. "We did a number on them as they did a number on us."
"Their toughness, it reminded me of Coach Knight's first team that he talks about. It was a tough, rugged, blue-collar, 1-to-5 team. I think that if you get a chance to ask Coach Izzo, he'll readily admit that team was as tough if not tougher than us."
Fife thinks that it hurt that they took Aaron Henry out with two fouls in the first half. Thinks it forced them to keep McQuaid on the floor too long, which wore him out - kind of links it to him missing the 3 to tie it up late in the 2nd half.
If you find the All Ball Podcast from April 12th, you can listen. They start talking about the final 4 game with only about 9:30 left in the podcast.
