Skip to main content
Join
Team Avatar
Michigan State

Tom Izzo considers how Big Ten Tournament prepares Michigan State for NCAA Tournament

IMG_6598by:Nick Kosko•03/17/24•

nickkosko59

USATSI_22783017 (1)
Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK

Tom Izzo saw this year’s Big Ten Tournament as a learning experience for Michigan State ahead of the NCAA Tournament.

Ahead of Selection Sunday, Izzo reflected on the Spartans’ 1-1 stint in the conference tournament. Michigan State fell 67-62 to top seed Purdue in the quarterfinals.

Izzo is an old school guy, saying he was unsure of a long conference tournament before March Madness. But it’s great preparation now, especially for a more inexperienced team.

“I’m not sure I was for this tournament when it started,” Izzo said. “Jim Delany started it. I remember the meeting with Bob Knight, Gene Keady, Clem Haskins. Not a lot of people were for the tournament. 25 years later, I think it’s proved to be something great, something that rivals some of the great tournaments around the country.

“I thought our guys learned a lot today. The timeouts were great. There was more focus. A.J. did a helluva job.”

As a learning experience, Izzo thought it was great for his entire squad.

“But how about us? We went to Booker in the last minute,” Izzo said. “Shows you how much confidence I do have in him in that respect. As he gets stronger, he’s going to be a helluva player. He’ll learn from this. Coen will learn from this.”

But with that type of performance, it inspires confidence and if the Spartans are dancing, Michigan State could be a very tough out. That’s how Izzo sees it.

“Hopefully our juniors and seniors will realize that we can play with anybody,” Izzo said. “We’ve shown that all year long. The problem is we haven’t made the plays down the stretch. We’ve got to do a better job of that, and a lot of that falls on me. This week I’m going to try to do a better job of it, and we’ll see if we can make one of those patented Michigan State runs.

“We’ve now played Arizona. We’ve played Tennessee. We’ve played Purdue twice. Those are potentially all 1 seeds. We’ve played Illinois and Baylor and Duke. So we’ve been battle tested. And we’ve done something else that we’ve had to rise up from some adversity and some tough times. I think that’s a key in a team making a run, can it handle that, and can it work itself out of it? That’s kind of the job of this week.”