Animated Tom Izzo calls Michigan State 'Spartan strong' after overcoming double-digit deficit on the road

Michigan State overcome a double-digit deficit on Tuesday to pick up a conference road win at Nebraska, just days after a deflating, improbable loss to Iowa. After the game, head coach Tom Izzo was animated about his squad and where they stand.

After playing four of the last five games on the road and, as students and members of campus, living through a horrific mass shooting, Izzo couldn’t have been prouder of his Michigan State team. He made that much clear to Big Ten Network’s Shon Morris in a postgame interview after dispatching the Cornhuskers.

“Well let me tell ya, these guys have been knocked on that canvas in the last three weeks. So all you people back there, congratulations,” Izzo said, looking into the camera and giving a thumbs up. “Because I thought all Spartans should be happy. These guys raised up after the tragedy, then you get the Michigan game, then you get that tough game against Iowa. Which they came back, they won the game. But, gettin’ up, gettin’ up, gettin’ up is hard to do. So I give my guys a lot of credit. We’re Spartan strong.”

In those five games, Michigan State went 3-2, with the losses coming to Michigan in Ann Arbor and the aforementioned collapse against Iowa. It’s been a trying stretch for Michigan State, but one that they appear to coming out of in good fashion. And though the Spartans were not really at risk of missing the NCAA Tournament, their seed line was starting to sag. Beating Nebraska, closing out the season with one more win against Ohio State plus a strong showing at the Big Ten tournament should have Michigan State very comfortably in the field.

As for finally slowing down Nebraska, including the red hot Keisei Tominaga, Izzo gave a pretty simple explanation for what Michigan State did.

“It was really complicated, we decided to do a bunch of different things, you know,” Izzo said. “So we went in the lab and we said, ‘Would some please GUARD SOMEBODY!’ That’s all we did!”