Tom Izzo reflects on COVID era in sports: 'I think we might have made a mistake'

The COVID era was a paradigm-shifting period in college basketball. It introduced significant changes, such as COVID eligibility extensions, the transfer portal and NIL, all of which have transformed the sport in just a few years.

Although 2024 is the final year collegiate athletes can use their “COVID year,” the transfer portal and NIL opportunities aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. On Thursday, Michigan State men’s basketball head coach Tom Izzo reflected on the changes brought forward during the COVID era.

“As I look back, I think we might have made a mistake,” Izzo said. “It was all in good intention that kids didn’t get a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament, right? I mean, that was the big reason for it. We played 90% of the season.

“We did not get to play in the conference tournament or the NCAA Tournament, and so they gave everybody another year, and it sounded fair and good, but when you added that with the NIL and the transfer portal, it’s been absolute chaos.”

It was a painful, unexpected ending to Michigan State’s season. The Spartans finished the 2019-20 campaign with a 22-9 overall record and a 14-6 mark in conference play, earning the Big Ten regular season title.

However, in the blink of an eye, the Spartans’ season came to an end and, unbeknownst to fans around the nation, unprecedented change was on its way. The transformation was fast and it ushered in a new era of collegiate sports.

Players who previously had to be careful about signing an autograph could suddenly make million-dollar deals with worldwide brands. Bench players who at one time had to wait a year just to play for a new team could now immediately find a fresh start in a new location.

Lastly, players whose careers were affected by COVID-19 were able to play another year and, inadvertently, gained an advantage over younger competition.

The players were far from the only ones affected by the wave of changes and Izzo saw many of his former colleagues struggle to adjust to the new reality of college basketball.

“It was chaos and these are all new things,” Izzo said. “You think 30 years of experience, 42 years for Mike Krzyzewski, 38 years for Roy Williams — all the different guys — Rick Barnes.

“They have all this experience, and then they enter into something that is new territory. They have no experience in it, and that’s been a semi-hard adjustment for everybody to make, including the players.”