Michigan State's Tom Izzo makes joke about retirement timeline

Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo is now 67 years old and one of the elder statesmen of college basketball after the retirement of Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Villanova’s Jay Wright. As his colleagues plan their retirement, he continues coaching into a new era which brings plenty uncertainty with it.

During an appearance on The Herd, Tom Izzo joked about what will play the biggest role in his retirement decision with Colin Cowherd and Joy Taylor.

“Well that’s a good point because Mike’s nine years older, but Jay Wright is a little younger than I am,” said Izzo. “Jay’s a good friend and I respect what he did, but it just depends on how many bad calls those refs keep making. Because that takes a lot of energy to get after those guys, but if they get better I’m going to stay longer.”

Whether the referees across college basketball get better in time to keep Tom Izzo in the game a bit longer or not, he appears happy to keep coaching at the present moment regardless of the changing landscape.

Tom Izzo on college basketball

In addition to retirement talk, Tom Izzo spoke about the current state of college basketball. He provided his biggest concern, which revolves around the kids and not the programs, also questioning the mentality the new way creates in athletes.

“It scares me a little bit if I’m being honest with you,” said Izzo. “And yet, somehow it seems to work. The transfer portal is – I worry about the kids that don’t get out of the portal, there’s 200-250 kids last year that never had a place to go. I worry about where these kids are going to go after they’ve transferred four times. What’s the school they go back to for help? There’s a lot of unintended consequences with it. But I’ve kind of given up on that.”

After turning the question on Colin Cowherd, getting his take on the state of college basketball, Tom Izzo responded to the notion that this is a new rough period but things will bounce back and settle down.

“I think it’ll bounce back, but I don’t think it’s going to be sustainable the way it is,” said Izzo. “But we’ll see what happens there. The biggest thing that I’ve said about it is, I just don’t know if 17, 18, 19-year olds are any different than the three of us were. And are we going to make good decisions? We’re going to make decisions because people are influencing us.”