Tom Izzo shoulders blame in loss to Indiana

To say that Michigan State‘s loss to Indiana on Tuesday night was a dissapointment is an understatement, Spartans head coach Tom Izzo said after the 71-67 loss.

After an 18-2 start to the season, the Spartans have lost three of their last four games in the month of February. They are now in third place in the Big Ten standings after winning their first nine games in conference play.

However, Izzo still believes his team has a shot to win the regular season title despite making it harder on themselves with the string of losses. The longtime Spartans head coach took on most of the blame in defense of his team.

“I tried to explain when we were 9-0 [in conference play] what was going on. I haven’t changed one bit. I told you four or five losses would win the league, I haven’t changed on that at all,” Izzo said. “We put ourselves in a hole now because we didn’t do the job at home. You’ve gotta win your home games and try to split on the road. We did not play well enough to win.

“And like I said, I say this on my big night – I guess it’s a big night – I didn’t coach well enough to win. But no, I didn’t detect nothing. The guys were great. Guys practiced well. Just didn’t make shots and we didn’t handle some things we needed to handle.”

Izzo’s “big night” is referring to the fact that Tuesday’s matchup could have been one for the history books.

If the Spartans would’ve defeated the Hoosiers, Izzo would’ve moved into first place in all-time wins in Big Ten history. He’s currently tied with longtime Indiana head coach for first place with 353 career conference wins.

Izzo apologized to everyone who came out to see him break the record, revealing that some of his close friends and family traveled to East Lansing for the game. The Spartans eventually came up short. However, there are more than a few opportunities for Izzo to break Knight’s record coming up.

Up next for Michigan State is a road trip to Illinois on Saturday night. Tip-off is set for 8 p.m. ET live on FOX, and if the Spartans can’t get it done against the Fighting Illini, they have six more games left in the regular season to push Izzo to the top of the record book.

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