Tom Izzo showers Duke with praise after Michigan State's massive win

The Michigan State Spartans faced the Duke Blue Devils on Tuesday, and whenever these teams meet, it's always a fiery matchup. Tom Izzo is in his 32nd season as the head coach of the Spartans, and those who remember when this team snagged the championship in 2000, also know that Duke and Coach K were always a bitter rival of MSU.

A lot has changed over the past few decades, but the Michigan State and Duke basketball rivalry is still there. On Tuesday, the Spartans defeated Duke, 79-73, and Izzo was happy.

Tom Izzo praises Duke after Michigan State's big win

After the game, Izzo opened up his news conference by praising Duke. It's the polite and professional thing to do, and he certainly did it.

"In these preseason games, it's so hard to play these kind of games this early. I want to first say that I made a lot of comments that I absolutely love Duke's team. I still love them," he said, per 247Sports' Stephen Brooks. "They missed a lot of shots early that I thought were wide-open shots for them and we didn't make some plays defensively."

But it wasn't all about his opponent. He also praised MSU.

"I really believe that we played our best basketball of the year. But we're three games into the year, so big deal," he said.

Izzo also talked about Michigan State's huge football win over the Michigan Wolverines on Saturday. He said it was bigger than his Duke victory.

"That was very well said, but if you think that this win over Duke is as big as our football team's win over Michigan, you're on dial-a-clue," he said. "So I just appreciate it, but now what I'm going to do is add on to what Pat Fitzgerald did. I'm not going to try to surpass that."

He added, "There's just some things about rivalries, and this is a good rivalry. But this is a love affair rivalry. That's a Hatfield and McCoy rivalry. So there's a big difference in rivalries."