One of the big story lines going into tomorrow night's game has been the friendly banter between John Calipari and Tom Izzo. Last week, Cal joked that his team had a disadvantage going into the game because of their youth, to which Izzo said "forfeit." After the game last night, Cal told Tom Leach that he told Izzo he'd take him up on his offer so that Michigan State's coach could just go to Chicago and shop. This morning,
Izzo opened up about his friendship with Calipari, and how much respect he has for him:
"I shouldn't be close friends with him at all. I mean, I haven't been able to recruit very well against him No. 1. The only time that we've played against each other, we were I think 100 points down at halftime, but it might not have been that many. It just felt like 100. Hell, I like the guy. I guess he's Italian, and I appreciate that."
Izzo pointed out that getting those top recruits is great, but it comes with its own challenges:
"I respect the fact that he can take a bunch of freshmen and for the most part over these years he's able to change his team and still get them to play at a high level, and I think part of it is, whether he likes this or not, they do have seven of the top 10 recruits. Nobody has that. Nobody. But he has to coach them, too. With that can go problems, and I think he's pretty demanding of his guys. I don't think he just rolls the ball out. I think he gets after them. I respect that about him. So we'll be friends until the ball goes up. If we're down 30 at halftime, I'm bagging my friendship."
How can you not like Tom Izzo?
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