Tom Izzo explains why he was disappointed in win over Minnesota

Michigan State won their second straight on Thursday with a 10-point win over Minnesota inside the Breslin Center. Even so, Tom Izzo was not very pleased with the outing from his Spartans.

Izzo shared his frustrations with the performance during his postgame press conference following the 76-66 victory over the Golden Gophers. While they won the game, he didn’t feel like his team took a step forward to their ultimate goals with it.

“Every year? You’ve got to do two things. You’ve got to win games and you’ve got to be progressing every game,” said Izzo. “We won a game. We did not progress. I was disappointed.”

Izzo then dove into the different aspects of the game that made him feel that way.

The Spartans didn’t shoot it too well for the entire game as they went 3-12 (25%) from three while missing eight free throws. Four more threes also kept the road team around even though they finished with 14 more turnovers.

In the first half, Michigan State was just never able to truly separate. That led to a second half that was back and forth until the final four minutes when they closed on a 14-4 run.

That all combined to irk Izzo, especially after they came into the game feeling better about where they were at.

“We relaxed. I thought that we relaxed. Got off to a good start, 13-5. I thought our wings didn’t guard anybody,” Izzo noted. “When you have a game where you have five turnovers, the opponent has 19? You have 20 assists on 29 baskets? There were some incredible things we did. But we missed wide-open threes. We missed a bunch of free throws, which we haven’t done in a long time and means we just weren’t there.”

“When you’ve been in it as long as I have, you go to bed at night and you say, ‘God we had a good practice. I feel better. I’ll sleep good,'” said Izzo. “Good practice the night before a game? That’s great. When you’ve been in it as long as I have? I said to (Doug) Wojcik on the bench that there’s times you have a good practice and you play bad. Then there’s times you have a bad practice and you play good. I like the odds the other way.”

A win is a win in conference play, regardless of how it comes. It’s just that, after nearly 30 years at the helm, Izzo knows what it takes. Their effort against Minnesota, although a victorious one, didn’t meet that expectation.

Now, with an 11th mark in the win column, Izzo will be looking for better on Sunday in College Park.

“It bothers me,” said Izzo. “We won a game. That’s what you’ve got to do at this time of year. You’ve got to win a game. But if you’re going to really do something?”

“All in all, we’re just going to take that as a win. I’m going right to work on Maryland – big road game that we have next.”