Tom Izzo evaluates ‘level of concern’ after second loss, finds positive signs
On Tuesday night, Tom Izzo and his Michigan State Spartans fell to the Duke Blue Devils in the Champions Classic. With that, the Spartans picked up an early second loss on the season.
After the game, Izzo broke down what his level of concern was with this season’s team while finding positive signs amid the slow start.
“If I listen to you guys, I met as well just call it a year,” Tom Izzo said. “Level of concern, level of concern, level of concern. I mean, we lost the game, you know? The last game that we lost we had some problems shooting the ball, but that was also the game that we were in a lot of foul trouble, and Malik [Hall] and A.J. [Hoggard] were cramping up the whole second half.”
Michigan State opened this season with an upset loss to James Madison. Now, the Spartans added a second loss against Duke. For a season that started with high expectations, it’s a concerning start. Despite that, Tom Izzo sees more than negative things with this team.
“It’s funny how everybody just picks out the negative things. I mean, I’m really good at that, and if I’m not — but you guys are beating me out tonight. You guys are doing a better job than me. So, all I can tell you is I like the fact we didn’t quit. I like the fact we walked in the locker room and the first thing A.J. says is, ‘If I don’t play better, you should bench me. This is ridiculous,'” Izzo said.
“You know what? Those are positive signs. Malik was a very positive sign. He did it inside, outside, he guarded pretty well. The other guy you got to give credit for them was — we had a game plan on the [Mark] Mitchell kid, thought we executed to the T, except we let him drive and then fouled him. There was no reason to foul him. There’s no reason to let him drive the way we were supposed to be covering him. So, a couple mistakes there, and some of that was with our young guys.”
Michigan State will look to bounce back and get back to .500 against Butler on Friday.
Tom Izzo gives thoughts on history with Duke
Ahead of the Champions Classic game against Duke, Tom Izzo shared his thoughts on the history of Michigan State playing Duke.
“Listen, this has been a very good rivalry in its own way for two teams that aren’t in the same conference. Unfortunately, they have one more [championship] than we have, but I think 90 percent of the games have been very very very good games and I expect this will be a dogfight too. They’re very talented, very talented. They play a lot of three guards, in fact sometimes they’re playing three point guards. So what I would say is it’s two programs that have done it the right way, two programs that there’s been great respect for,” Izzo said.
“I’m a little mad at Mike that he didn’t let us win a few more of those games, but other than that I recruited Jon Scheyer. I’ve known Jon, he’s done a good job there, some of the staff’s the same yet it will be different not looking down there and not seeing Mike Krzyzewski. That’ll be different for me for sure, but they’re in good hands, they’re doing well, and hopefully we are too.”