Tom Izzo fired up: ‘You just prolonged my retirement for 2 years’

There was a lot of feel-good content for Michigan State basketball after the 3-seed Spartans’ Sweet 16 ticket was cliched Saturday afternoon in Buffalo, New York, with a workmanlike 77-69 win over 6-seed Louisville.

Much of the content was emotional and centered around coach Tom Izzo, in his 28th straight March Madness tournament, who just earned a remarkable 17th Sweet 16 bid.

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We take you inside the locker room with Izzo and the team, watch his reaction to the “ultimate compliment” of a question from a media member and see a basketball legend wax poetic about what makes Izzo so great.

Tom Izzo: ‘You just prolonged my retirement for two years’

See Izzo’s response to a question from a media member postgame, who said watching MSU on TV every year, it looks similar to the same type of ball no matter who’s wearing the uniform.

“How are you able to get that out of these young people?”

“You just prolonged my retirement for two years,” Izzo said, “because that’s the ultimate compliment. And it’s because at our place we play for the players that have played before us, and we play for the players that are playing with us. And we sure as hell play for the name on the front. And this day and age, that’s getting a little tougher to do.”

Tom Izzo emotional in MSU postgame locker room

Watch and listen to Izzo’s message after the second-round win, which got former coach Bruce Pearl emotional just watching.

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“We said it was gonna be six [wins], now it’s down to four. You gotta trust that I said, ‘you get us to the four and we’ll get you to the next two.’ So anything we say and do, you gotta listen, you gotta learn and you gotta do it.”

Then Izzo asked if the jitters were over for freshmen Jordan Scott and Cam Ward, bringing laughs. “I probably had ’em my rookie year, too, so I don’t want you to think that I didn’t go through the same thing,” Izzo said, before bringing family into the locker room to break it down.

“Way to win a weekend!” Jeremy Fears Jr. said to break it…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/tom-izzo-fired-just-prolonged-151531618.html

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Publish date : 2026-03-22 15:15:00

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