Tom Izzo proud of how his team grew during NCAA Tournament run

Tom Izzo mentioned how Michigan State grew as a team throughout the NCAA Tournament. Despite the Sweet 16 overtime loss to Kansas State, the Spartans became one.

If Michigan State actually pulled it off, the team would’ve been the second lowest seed remaining (behind No. 9 Florida Atlantic). Even amid a war of a game which ended in a loss, Izzo held his head high for his players.

Despite Izzo claiming Michigan State lost rather than Kansas State outright winning, he was proud of his squad’s run.

“Yeah, you know, when you have 16 to 2 points off turnovers, you’ve got to give us a little bit of blame and give them a little bit of credit,” Izzo said. “But I would agree with that. I sure as hell am proud of my team, even stuff like that.

“But they just made some incredible shots. We made some good plays. I guess we couldn’t stop them, and I’m sitting there looking at the stats, and I’m talking about how good they were. They shot 55 percent, but I think they had — including the lay-up at the end, I think they had about six lay-ups off of turnovers. They shot 45 from the three, and we thought they made every shot. We shot 52.”

Izzo laid out more stats in the game.

“They shot 68 from the line, we shot 82,” Izzo said. “We out-rebounded them by seven. We did enough things, too, that we played pretty damned good and should be proud of that. Whenever you lose, you’re never proud of anything, and when you have some mistakes that were kind of effort related, not getting back and things, that’s going to be hard to watch the film. 

“But I was just proud of this team. As many teams as I’ve had that have gone far and lost because the way this team, the way they grew the last couple of weeks, it was fun to see happen.”

AJ Hoggard led the way for the Spartans. He finished with 25 points, two rebounds and six assists. Joey Hauser was second on the team with 18 points and six rebounds.

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“But these guys battled back,” Izzo said. “Ty was struggling early. Joey was hot. A.J. was just in the middle of it. A.J. really came along late, then Ty did, then Joey did. I’m proud of them. I’m really proud of them. I don’t say that about a lot of teams. But what they’ve done in the last couple weeks, how they’ve grown. I give a lot of credit to Kansas State, but boy, it was their night with some of those shots that went in. That’s it.”