Tom Izzo 'tickled to death' by NCAA Tournament placing

The field for the NCAA tournament is complete, and the matchups are all set. And Michigan State received a well-earned gift with their ticket to the big dance. Spartans’ head coach Tom Izzo recently revealed he’s ‘tickled to death’ about his team’s placement in the tournament. Not because of who they will be playing, but where.

Or where he thinks the Spartans are playing.

“I’m tickled to death that we’re in the Midwest. I’m tickled to death that we get an opportunity,” said Izzo. “I think we’ll be in the right frame of mind, but it’s been an incredible year with a lot of different things that have happened. But nothing like March. And even though I didn’t think we handled March last weekend very well, there’s going to be those days, and it’s how you bounce back from that’ll determine.”

The slight gaffe by the Spartans’ headman was in believing his team was in the Midwest portion of the bracket. Michigan State is actually in the East. But where they will start tournament play is just a four-hour drive from their campus, at the home of one of their more prominent Big Ten rivals. The Spartans will head south to Columbus, OH, home of the Buckeyes, for the opening round. And oddly enough, they will start the tournament against a future conference rival in USC.

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Now whether Columbus should be a host city for either the East or the Midwest bracket is up to your geographical perspective. But either way, Izzo is absolutely tickled to be playing so close to home.

Izzo shares feelings on breaking consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance record for coaches

With Michigan State‘s inclusion in the 2023 NCAA Tournament, Tom Izzo has broken the record for most consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances by a head coach. He and the Spartans have appeared in 25 straight tournaments.

He broke the record set by Mike Krzyzewski at Duke of 24 from 1995-2019.

“It means the world to me,” Izzo said at his post-Selection Sunday press conference. “It means I had a lot of good players, means that I had a lot of good staff. It means that I had a lot of good fans. You don’t win games over a period of time because of what you do you. You win games because there’s a collection of people that are all doing their job. I’ve said this many, many times. The games we won because of our community, our fans, our students, you just wouldn’t believe. We come back in the locker room and said that would have been a loss. There’s at least three or four of those every year. Those three or four makes the difference between something good and something average.”