Following a brutal loss to North Carolina, Tom Izzo spoke to reporters and vowed to bring Michigan State basketball back to the top.
After yet another disappointing early exit in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday night, Tom Izzo was fired up.
The Hall of Fame head coach seemed to show more fire than we’ve seen from him in years, speaking to the media about what to expect moving forward. He stated that if “someone wants him out” he would still find somewhere to coach because he hasn’t accomplished what he wants to. And he also had this quote which had to make everyone feel a lot better about the future of the program.
Vowing to make Michigan State a deep NCAA Tournament team again is music to all of our ears. While the Spartans made a Sweet 16 a year ago and a Final Four back in 2019, it feels like they have fallen short of expectations for four straight seasons. Beginning this year ranked No. 4 only to lose in the second round of the NCAA Tournament as a 9-seed was more than disappointing. It was unacceptable. And Izzo admitted that after the game as well, accepting the blame for the team’s struggles this year.
While he can’t be blamed for everything that went wrong, he knows that he is a huge part of it. He knows that he has to be better and he vowed to be just that moving forward.
“I’m gonna get back to a deeper run in this tournament or I’m going to die trying.”
That’s the type of quote we all wanted to hear after Saturday’s loss. We didn’t want to hear a “we’ll try to be better next year” or a generic coachspeak quote about how he’s proud of the way the guys battled. We wanted fire. We got it.
Tom Izzo has always been passionate and fiery, but he has watered in down in recent years. It feels like he’s found that fire again and he’s going to run with it next year and beyond. This also sounds like he’s going to coach for quite a while still.
Between this Izzo quote and Xavier Booker telling reporters that he’s “definitely” coming back next season, the offseason has gotten off to a great start.
More must-reads: