Michigan State coach Tom Izzo called his team’s 72-52 defeat at Iowa Wednesday night the worst performance of any Izzo-coached Spartan clubs.
That is saying something.
He may be right. Iowa is the worst team in the Big Ten Conference. I know. I live in Iowa.
My friend, Jimmy, is a huge Spartan fan. He thinks they will qualify for the National Invitational Tournament (NIT). Good news, Jimmy. There are more losers’ tournaments besides the NIT these days. So your team has plenty of chances for postseason basketball. Just post a .500 record or better.
But how can Michigan State go from playing in the national finals last season to 13-9overall and 5-5 in conference? That’s puzzling. Another bad thing for the Spartans no signature wins. The only beaten Wisconsin and Minnesota on the road.
Izzo prides himself at getting his team ready for tournament time. And he is good at it. But if the Spartans don’t soon wake-up, they will be getting ready for one of those loser tournaments. For my foreign readers, I call anything other than playing in the NCAA National Tournament as a loser tournament.
The problem must be chemistry. Year-after-year, Michigan State lands the top players. Normally, you don’t want to play Izzo’s team in March or early April. But this year, Michigan State may play the role of North Carolina last season.
Paybacks can be enjoyable.
2 comments:
I knew it was coming eventually, a write up on State. Justifiably so. While the realist in me foresees an NIT spot, I am still holding out hope that, as you said, the boys "wake-up" here in the last few games (maybe even knocking off OSU in columbus on the 15th, a game i hope to be at - a man in green standing alone in a sea of red) and get some big wins. Even though they're playing bad I wouldn't count upset wins out, if for no other reason than "it can happen." Look at Indiana knocking out a couple wins, Penn State's beating people.
But yes, this has been a very rough year for State, but when year after year you set the bar high... You gotta keep it up.
Please Paulie, my brother, don't compare us to Marck's old stomping ground... that hurts my heart.
Well, Jimmy, State reminds me a lot of North Carolina this season. Sometimes the truth hurts, ha. Thanks for writing and reading my blog.
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