Tom Izzo questions NCAA on redshirt rules in basketball vs. football

Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo has plenty of things he’d change about college basketball, surely. His current topic to address: Redshirting.

Speaking to reporters prior to Michigan State’s Champions Classic matchup against Duke, Izzo took issue with the current redshirt rules in college basketball. Absent an injury, the NCAA won’t grant a redshirt to a player who has played in any of the 30-plus regular season games, something Izzo would like to see change.

“For some strange reason, the NCAA has given football a chance to redshirt on Christmas Eve and basketball gets two exhibition games. I’m not sure I’m for or against many things, but if they get a third of the year, we’ve been fighting on our committee, that definitely should be something,” Izzo said.

As Izzo intimated, in NCAA football a player can appear in up to four games without burning a year of eligibility — plus the redshirt can be applied after the season is over once a player hasn’t appeared in more than four games. Conversely, the only action potential redshirt players might get in basketball is during the two preseason exhibition games.

Izzo, it seems, would be open to allowing players to play in some portion of games during the season while maintain the possibility to redshirt. If the proportion followed in the steps of football and accounted for a third of a season, that would be about 10 games for players to get game action while saving a year of eligibility.

And if players start getting hurt in the rotation, coaches in basketball might not have a choice but to play someone and burn a redshirt, something Izzo would rather not be the reality of his profession.

“But who knows how people look at things. But that makes it very, very difficult,” Izzo said.

The topic came to light as Izzo discussed the potential for redshirting guard Gehrig Normand, a move that seems likely to happen. Having seldom few opportunities to see him — or most players — in game action before making a decision puts Izzo and his staff in potentially precarious spots in managing the roster.

“And he was hurt the first exhibition game, if you remember. So, the game plan is to try to do it. That is not etched in stone, yet. That’ll be something that Gehrig and I and his parents and my staff figure out in the near future,” Izzo said.