Tom Izzo addresses friends, family that traveled to watch him break Bob Knight record: ‘I feel bad for them’

Tom Izzo remains tied with Bob Knight at 353 wins in Big Ten history after Indiana defeated No. 11 Michigan State on East Lansing on Tuesday night.

The Spartans head coach tied the record on Saturday after an 86-74 win over Oregon. The stage was set for a history-making mid-week matchup against, ironically, the program that Knight won all of those games with. However, they would end up coming short of breaking the record.

After the game, Izzo noted felt like he let everyone who came to see him break the record down.

“I had a lot of people, including my two college roommates that came a long way, and Steve Smith, and a lot of people came in for it and I feel bad for them because we had an opportunity for a special night, and I don’t think the players played very well and I didn’t think the coaches coached very well,” Izzo said. “That’s a bad combination against a team that was desperate. 

“I don’t want to take anything away from Indiana. They didn’t hardly take a shot (from the outside) the second half, they just pounded the ball inside, pounded the ball inside, pounded the ball inside. Again, we were in so much foul trouble we didn’t guard it very well and then we didn’t adjust to some of that and lost the game.”

While Izzo was unable to break the record against the Hoosiers, he has another opportunity on the road at Illinois on Saturday night. If they can’t come up big against the Illini, the Spartans have six more in-conference regular season games after that to secure the victory.

However, the Spartans are off to a 19-5 start to the season and despite a recent string of losses, are still in third place in the current Big Ten Confeerence standings. They’re currently half a game back from Purdue, and 1.0 game back from Michigan for the top spot.

Whenever Izzo and Michigan State do earn their next victory, it will set Izzo apart from any other coach in Big Ten Conference action. It took rougly three decades for Izzo to reach this mark, which was a similar pace to that of Knight when he originally set the record.

Purdue’s Matt Painter, who has been with the Boilermakers since 2005, is currently fourth on the all-time list. Izzo was already at the helm of the Spartans’ staff for a decade when he joined, and has 237 wins in conference games over the last two decades.

That’s still a long way from catching Izzo, however, who can enter uncharted territory win one more victory in Big Ten action. The Spartans tip-off on the road vs. Illinois on Saturday night at 8 p.m. ET live on FOX.

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