Tom Izzo addresses lowered excitement over Big Ten regular season title: 'You guys can solve that'

Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo had mixed feelings about the Big Ten regular season title. The Spartans clinched it with a comeback win over Iowa Thursday.

It’s the 11th conference crown for Izzo and first since 2020. It’s also Michigan State’s first outright title since 2018. But the tournaments in March mean more, it seems. Although Izzo conceded the grind to get to this point means a lot too.

“You guys can solve that. Just write about it,” Izzo said postgame. “You guys are the guys that have the platform. But I do think, when I came up in this league, winning the Big Ten championship was the greatest thing in the world. It’s sad, because you go through 20 games, man – that’s the grind. Because you can win three games in the tournament, get lucky. Because you can win four games and get to a Final Four, it’s impressive. But it ain’t like the grind of the 20 games that we just got done playing.”

The consistency for Michigan State is evident. The team is now 25-5 on the season and ranked No. 8 in the country ahead of the final regular season AP Poll.

“To stay as consistent as we have deserves more than I’m giving it right now,” Izzo said. “People, unfortunately, I think we barely play basketball until the end of this month. The way football has gone and everything, it seems like basketball has taken a backseat. Maybe we as coaches gotta do a better job, you as writers gotta do a better job and let them know. 

“That team, my staff sat there and said ‘Man …’ I mean, we felt for Sandfort. We’ve enjoyed him. I give respect to people I think are really good players and that play hard and hang in there and fight through things. I told him that after the game.”

Michigan State will finish with rival Michigan to end the regular season before trying to conquer the Big Ten Tournament and NCAA Tournament. Izzo doesn’t want to brush this current accomplishment under the rug though, a credit to their difficult schedule and talent to combat it.

“Yeah, I think the Big Ten still means something to me,” Izzo said. “It is harder when you play three teams twice and all that, luck of the draw, where you play them. But I don’t have that many years left, so I’m gonna just say the Big Ten still matters to me and it’s gonna matter to me until I walk out the door.”