Meet the Izzo who won’t be in Buffalo for Michigan State’s NCAA opener

Dom Izzo will not be in Western New York this week for the first round of the NCAA Tournament. He’s the first to tell you, he’s bummed out to miss such a momentous event.

Yes.

Dom.

That’s not a typo. Dom Izzo is a TV and radio broadcaster from Fargo, North Dakota, who just happens to share a surname with a certain basketball coach from East Lansing.

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A veteran of nearly 20 years on the airwaves in Fargo and the current sports director at WDAY-TV, Dom Izzo also handles play-by-play duty for telecasts of the North Dakota State Bison in football, women’s basketball and, yep, men’s basketball.

But come Thursday, March 19, there will be no Izzo (non-)family reunion at KeyBank Center in Buffalo.

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It’s not for lack of trying. Dom Izzo (no immediate relation) on Monday, March 16, said he has been worked on connecting with Tom Izzo for years now, to no avail. And he’ll miss another chance when the 3-seed Spartans (25-7) face the 14-seed Bison (27-7) in MSU’s East region first-round game Thursday (4:05 p.m., TNT).

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“I was following this and was hoping it would be Portland [Oregon] or something,” said Dom, a native of Oswego, New York. “Not Buffalo, because Buffalo is literally 2½ hours from where I grew up. So it’s a double-whammy. And then it’s Michigan State, of all teams, that [the Bison] are going to be playing.”

Dom said his wife previously had surgery scheduled for Friday, which is why he won’t be traveling to Buffalo with the men’s hoops team. Instead, Dom plans to be on the call for Thursday’s NDSU women’s home game against Chattanooga in the WNIT, remaining nearby for his wife the next day.

NCAA tournament time has brought two other chances for Dom to get in touch with Tom. The first came in 2009, when the Bison – in their first year of eligibility after moving up from Division II in 2004-05 – earned their first March Madness berth and lost a thriller to…

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Publish date : 2026-03-17 09:10:00

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