IOWA CITY, Iowa – After four straight years with more than a dozen losses, constant bubble talk and early exits from the NCAA Tournament, Tom Izzo heard the criticism.
“Bring. It. On,” the always fiery 70-year-old Michigan State coach said in October.
The Spartans responded by defying critics and outside expectations, putting together another banner-raising season. With a 91-84 win at Iowa on Thursday night, No. 8 Michigan State (25-5, 16-3) secured an outright Big Ten championship.
“Am I happy we won the Big Ten? I’m ecstatic, I’ll be ecstatic when I walk out of this building until I get to the plane,” Izzo said while noting the focus will quickly shift to Sunday’s regular-season finale against No. 17 Michigan as the Spartans look for a season sweep.
Michigan State’s first Big Ten title in five years is the 11th regular-season crown for Izzo to tie Bob Knight and Ward “Piggy” Lambert for the record. The latest career milestone for the coach in his 30th year leading the Spartans is a first for the current squad that opened the season unranked and now has a title.
“It was definitely one of my goals to start the season,” senior guard Jaden Akins said, “so I’m happy to be able to check that off and now be able to move forward to other goals.”
The mottos – “Strength in Numbers” and “Be Different” – have been staples all season and continued Thursday night at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. After the Spartans secured at least a share of the conference title due to Michigan’s loss against Maryland on Wednesday, an outright championship was on the line in Iowa City. A loss against the Hawkeyes would have allowed the Wolverines to play for a share of the title on Sunday.
“We knew that we had to win this game to complete that separation,” said freshman Jase Richardson, who posted a game-high 22 points against Iowa.
Early on, Michigan State didn’t look like a team riding a five-game winning streak with four in a row against ranked opponents. The Spartans missed wide-open looks and gave up easy buckets on the other end of the court amid Iowa’s 22-2 run that led to a 14-point deficit in the first half.
“We got outplayed a majority of that game and yet I do give my team credit for having some character, on the road, to come back when it didn’t seem like it was our night,” Izzo said. “For that, I’m greatly appreciative.”
With Michigan State attempting to avoid an upset in a half-filled arena, Coen Carr went to the rim but ended up on the floor amid contact and a no-call Izzo was upset about. That led to a break for Iowa and a foul called on Tre Holloman, who appeared to get all ball while swatting Payton Sandfort’s attempted dunk.
Izzo was irate and on the verge of getting a technical as the Hawkeyes used the free throws to go up 10 with 12:13 to play. Michigan State answered with a 33-6 run over the next eight minutes while pulling away.
“Coach thrives on that stuff,” Holloman said. “When it’s a bad call, coach gets us fired up and we just go to another level. That’s what we did.”
Izzo spent a good portion of his 15-minute postgame press conference praising Iowa and lamenting his team’s poor first half. The ugly outside shooting that has been a staple all season was again on display while the defensive intensity disappeared. That changed in the final 20 minutes.
“We just played more desperate, more attention to detail, just more heart,” Akins said, “and we got it done.”
This is a much different Big Ten than the one Izzo faced joining the Spartans as an assistant more than four decades ago. It’s now 18 teams and 20 games with a conference tournament and NCAA Tournament to follow. There are more opportunities ahead but a Big Ten title is still special.
“That’s the grind,” Izzo said. “Because you can win three games in the (Big Ten) 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. … To stay as consistent as we have deserves more than I’m giving it right now.”
