Michigan State wins share of Big Ten championship as Tom Izzo ties Knight, Lambert for most career titles with 11

Regardless of what happens in the final two games of Big Ten play, Michigan State owns at least a share of the 2024-2025 regular-season championship and Tom Izzo will be tied with Big Ten legends Bob Knight (Indiana) and Ward ‘Piggy’ Lambert (Purdue) for the most titles in Big Ten history with an 11th conference championship.

The latest coaching milestone for Izzo comes less than two weeks after he eclipsed Knight’s Big Ten record for career conference victories with Michigan State’s road victory at Illinois.

The Spartans clinched a share of the 11th Big Ten regular-season championship in Izzo’s Hall of Fame career with a 71-66 Maryland victory over the in-state rival of the Spartans on the road in Ann Arbor.

The Wolverines entered Wednesday’s Top 20 match-up needing a win over the Terps and a Spartan loss at Iowa on Thursday night to pull even with the Spartans in the Big Ten standings ahead of the Big Ten regular-season finale for both teams in East Lansing on Sunday.

With the Wolverines losing to the Terps on Wednesday, the Spartans can win the Big Ten regular season championship outright with a win at Iowa on Thursday. During his weekly press conference earlier this week, Izzo was asked about how he would handle a scenario in which the Spartans were to win a championship on the road, outright or shared.

“There will be no celebrating in Iowa,” Izzo said at his weekly press conference on Tuesday. “They’ve got a tiny little locker room there. Maybe we’ll give each other a hug if we find a way to win. But there will be no celebration. First of all, I will never do that on somebody else’s court ever. Second of all, I have too much respect for coaches, players, and fans. Third of all, we have bigger goals than winning it. Winning it outright. Playing better all of the time so we are better prepared for the tournaments that are coming up where it’s one bad day and one bad half and you are out. That’s not a negative. It is just the way I think it should be. I’ve seen it once or twice where people cut down the nets at somebody else’s place. I would never do that.”

A win at Iowa on Thursday would give Michigan State an outright championship. Even with a loss against Maryland, the Wolverines still have a chance to share a Big Ten title with their in-state rival. For that to happen, the Spartans would have to lose at Iowa on Thursday and drop their senior-day match-up with the Wolverines.

The Spartans put themselves in position to win Izzo’s 11th championship with five consecutive Quad 1 wins against upper-tier conference teams in Illinois, Purdue, Wolverines, Maryland and Wisconsin down the stretch of the Big Ten regular season..

For the Spartans, this is first Big Ten since 2020 when Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman won the program’s third straight regular-season title. Michigan State has also won regular-season Big Ten championships in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2018, 2019, in 2020.

In addition to winning 11 Big Ten regular-season titles under Izzo, the Spartans have won six Big Ten Tournament championships, a national championship, and eight Final Fours.

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