While Tom Izzo was quick to downplay the performance, making a point that he feels a lot of it came down to one team hitting shots while the other wasn’t, Tuesday night’s win was a major moment in the modern Tom Izzo era. Personally, I can’t remember the last time Izzo had this dominant of a win over a top-25 team.
It was also a referendum on how Tom Izzo coaches. While Kentucky is known to be spending over $20 million on its star-studded roster of 5-star recruits and major transfers, Tom Izzo stubbornly insists on sticking with his guys, developing over the transfer portal, paying his stars impressive, but relatively modest salaries for college basketball players in the NIL era, and out-hustling every team his team comes across.
That all paid off on Tuesday night, as his Spartans took down Kentucky 83-66, with that lead only in question for a few minutes of the game. After the game, Izzo used the moment to talk about loyalty, and of course, downplaying the win in classic Izzo fashion:
- “Kentucky did not play as well as they’ve been playing. I hope we get some credit for that, but I think they just missed some shots and did some things early. I didn’t think we played well early.”
- “We aren’t that good because we don’t shoot the ball that well. They aren’t that bad because they don’t shoot that badly.”
- “Homegrown people that are playing for the name on the front of their jersey because they know the name on the front of their jersey. People that care about the place they’re at.”
- “Their loyalty to me has gotta be my loyalty to them. And loyalty still frickin’ matters… I don’t give up on the people I got. That’s called development.”
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This article originally appeared on Spartans Wire: What Tom Izzo had to say about Michigan State’s big win over Kentucky
