Tom Izzo comments on Michigan State basketball’s win vs. Northern Iowa

On Friday night, Michigan State basketball followed up their huge win over Duke with a 34-point win over Northern Iowa. Despite the huge point differential, Tom Izzo was a little disappointed in his team after the game, as Northern Iowa was able to cut into the lead at times due to some sloppy defense from the Spartans.

Below, you can see what Izzo had to say about the game:

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Opening line

“[Nick] Saban, love him to death, ’cause I think my guys drank a little bit of his flavor. That rat poison.” Izzo is referring to Saban’s famous “rat poison” line about players believing their own good press.

On Jeremy Fears

“I had a long meeting with Jeremy this morning, and he vowed what he was going to do, and he might have had his best game as a Spartan… The way he ran the team, the way he shot the ball, the way he scored it. Nine assists, no turnovers.”

“I blamed Jeremy and Coen. And yet I couldn’t even blame Jeremy, so I had to blame myself in the huddle, because he did such a good job… I’ll make sure tomorrow morning I get after him, because nobody can withstand too many compliments.”

“I love the way he responded to a meeting. I guess I’ve got to do a better job with more meetings.”

On the defense and the letdown

“We get up 19-2, and I know all about what everybody wants to say: ‘Well, they took the foot off the pedal.’ I didn’t take my foot off the pedal. They took their foot off the pedal.”

“Give [us] credit for Duke. Talk about how tough and good a defensive team we are. Don’t give [us] credit for this, because we weren’t as tough and we didn’t play as good a defense. So that’s the way it works.”

“I just thought things came too easy, and we showed immaturity.”

“At halftime, we didn’t sit around and drink tea… We were a little bit upset with the way we were playing, and give the kids credit, they responded.”

On Northern Iowa

“That was as physical a team as we’ll play.”

“We wanted to get the ball inside, but we knew you couldn’t put it down. It was like a swarm of bees… You…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/tom-izzo-comments-michigan-state-125915545.html

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Publish date : 2026-11-14 12:59:00

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