Tom Izzo bothered by idea that Michigan State isn’t tough enough, wants response

Toughness is certainly not something that Michigan State has often lacked over nearly 30 years under Tom Izzo. It’s not something that he believes that his current Spartans will be missing either based on his latest assessment.

Izzo spoke about a potential lack of toughness regarding his team during his postgame press conference following their 63-54 win over Maryland on Saturday. He takes that thought as slight to him and his program in a way that he wants to correct that immediately in order to discredit it’s validity.

“It’s insulting to me,” said Izzo. “It bothers me to think of my team not being tough enough. Some of it must be the way I coach them. Some of it must be some of the personnel and some of it must be a little bit on them. I think all three parties deserve some blame.”

“Nobody here can say we’ve rebounded the ball, we’ve gotten after it like, maybe, we’re used to here. We had some meetings about that.”

Michigan State did their best to disprove that idea during their nine-point win over the Terrapins this weekend. They held them to just 54 points overall, their third-lowest output of the season, by keeping them just under 31% from the field and under 25% from three. The Spartans also won the glass by six and forced 13 turnovers from their opponents.

This was their second win over Maryland during the span of the last two weeks as they held them below 60 in both contests. It came following a few quality practices that Izzo felt like they used to succeed in the game.

“We had three good days of practice. Can we take practice to the game? That was the next thing that we talked about,” said Izzo. “At times? We did in parts of it.”

Again, if there’s one thing that a team led by Izzo is lacking, toughness usually isn’t it. Still, if there’s any doubt that they still may be, he expects them to find it within themselves and have it ready to go for the postseason next month.

“Listen, as you get closer to the tournament? This is what has to happen,” said Izzo.

“Sooner or later? It happens. You respond,” Izzo said. “Now, can you grow from that?”

Michigan State matches Maryland’s physicality in crucial victory

Michigan State got its first series sweep of Big Ten play on Saturday with a 63-54 win over Maryland, which, to this point in the season, has been the best defensive team in the Big Ten.

After the Spartans moved their conference record above .500 overall, SpartanMag.com’s Jim Comparoni and Paul Konyndyk checked in from the Breslin Center with commentary and analysis in the latest V-Cast.

With the win, Michigan State finds itself in a four-way tie with Nebraska and Northwestern for fourth place in the conference.