Michigan State coach Tom Izzo sounds off on transfer portal opening during NCAA tournament
EAST LANSING – Tom Izzo, at his core, remains an educator. Michigan State basketball’s Hall of Fame coach also remains as passionate as ever at 70 years old about the core tenets of his job.
Sometimes, in the modern world of college basketball, his beliefs collide with the reality of changes around him. Particularly ones he and other fought against with little to no avail.
Only a few hours after his No. 2 seed Spartans punched their tickets to Izzo’s 16th Sweet 16 on Sunday in Cleveland, with a hard-fought 71-63 victory over 10-seed New Mexico, the NCAA transfer portal opened Monday morning. Players around the country began flooding their names into the system, including freshman guard Justin Pippen from Michigan before both programs head to Atlanta with a potential historic meeting looming should both rivals make it to the Elite Eight.
Asked Tuesday how he and his staff are attempting to navigate the portal while being focused on still playing for a national championship, Izzo spent nearly a third of his 45-minute press conference to preview MSU’s game Friday with 6-seed Mississippi (7:09 p.m./CBS) railing on the dysfunctional system the NCAA has created and the challenges of the portal era.
“I learned something from my boss, Jud Heathcote. and there is a happy medium on this,” Izzo said. “I know this isn't normal, but nothing's normal. That's why I coined it, 'let's be different.' But he used to always say to me when I was working my tail off and recruiting, because he didn't do as much, and he'd say, ‘The problem with you new, young guys is you're always trying to replace the guys you got instead of making the guys you got better. Is that fair with the guys you got, that you're out spending time on somebody else and you're not taking care of them?' You know, happy medium.
“You always gotta recruit good players, and you always gotta have players you recruit. Well, I'm going to tell you something that I learned. If you're loyal to your players and they want to get better, then your obligation is to the people that you brought here. Now, if they don't want to get better or they aren't doing their job, nowadays, there won't be as many people that are hanging on to people and letting them. There'll be more runoffs. Could happen here, could happen somewhere else. But the last thing I want to do is cheat my players.”
The Spartans brought in two transfers during the offseason, and both Frankie Fidler and Szymon Zapala played pivotal roles in both their 29-6 season and Sunday’s comeback victory over the Lobos. MSU had two players from last year’s team, AJ Hoggard and Mady Sissoko, leave the program for their final season to the NCAA’s extra year of eligibility granted for the COVID season in 2020-21.
Izzo was asked another question: “With everything going on around, do you enjoy this as much as you always have, less or more?”
“I don't enjoy the distractions as much,” Izzo said. “I think I was put on the earth to be a coach, just like I was put on the earth to be a teacher. That's what my degree is in, teaching, if you're a teacher nowadays, parents are – it's tough to be a teacher. And so I don't enjoy the distractions nearly as much.
“But I do enjoy the fight, and I do enjoy the stubbornness of trying to do it not the same way. I mean, those that don't think I've adjusted, I've adjusted a lot. But I enjoy the practices, I enjoy being with the fellas, I enjoy every part about the basketball part of it. ... But do you understand what it takes for them to be successful? I don't think you do understand that. And that's what I gotta balance. It never used to be that way. I didn't have to balance that. Nobody cared. It's different.”
And Izzo continued, pointing to how much he has adapted over his 30 years as a head coach.
“So if people don't think I can change with the times, I've changed with the times,” he said. “If people think I'm gonna adjust to the principles, it'll be a cold day in hell.”
The Spartans returned from Cleveland early Monday morning and immediately went into preparation mode for facing the Rebels (24-11). Izzo is trying to get to his 12th Elite Eight and ninth Final Four while pursuing a second national title, which would be the Big Ten’s first since MSU won it all in 2000.
“This is a full week of work. I got three teams to prepare for, OK? Because that's what we do – we try to win the weekend,” Izzo said. “Winning one game and losing the other doesn't turn me on, it doesn't excite me. But the weekend? That excites me.”
Here is more of Izzo’s long response to the portal opening and changing landscape of navigating it.
* On how MSU is handling the portal: “I'm not dealing with it at all. The only thing that I would deal with is, I don't run players off. So you gotta have spots to pick up transfers. And maybe we'd have one (spot) if everybody came back. Maybe we wouldn't. If you don't have spots, why are you doing that? So that I can get somebody better? I can get a better girlfriend, because when I got isn't good enough? I don't know, get a better wife, because the one I got isn't good enough?
“It's not a loaded question, it's one I really have zero interest in answering, because I think it's ridiculous that the NCAA or any other entity put these two things together (the portal opening with the tournament ongoing), that people like you have to ask these questions. And I value that you have to ask them. And I do get upset when people are talking to our kids about them. I saw what happened at one school. Teams get a chance to play in the Sweet 16, and people are entering the transfer portal. Kids gotta do what they got to do, and they're really not doing what they gotta do. They're doing what their parents or their agents are telling them to do, because they still gotta go to practice, go in the same locker room unless they leave the team. And I think that's insane. I think it's disgusting. But that's my own personal opinion.
“We will always have an eye on the transfer portal. I mean, we get it. It's printed out now. We're back to rankings. 'This is the No. 1 transfer, and this is the No. 3 transfer.' It's more guys that don't have a clue that do that. And of course, we'll look at everything if something happens.”
* On preparing for Mississippi, with the winner facing the Auburn-U-M winner for a spot in next week’s Final Four: “I mean, we're working 24/7 on three teams right now. And if somebody's better than me that can work 24/7, plus being interested in getting somebody that's better than somebody they got – and that's the way it's it's going in our thing – I'm just not one of those guys. If that's what our fan base wants, our media wants, then it's not me. But I'm disgusted by the fact that we even have to deal with this at this time. And last year, the NCAA or whoever's making these rules had it the first day after Selection Sunday. So while everybody was celebrating that they got picked to go to the NCAA tournament, we have this going on? There's something wrong with us if we're doing that. And I'd like to take some blame, since I've been on committees, but I've made it pretty known we have no say in that. “
* On focusing solely on his team instead of the portal: “I got 15, 16 guys that have just accomplished something that hasn't been done much in my career. First of all, we've never won 17 Big Ten games. Second of all, to be 17-3 in a league that is this good and only have three losses is phenomenal. Third of all, they've given me everything they can, academically, athletically and socially. And I'm gonna think about replacing them? I've recruited the guys, they helped me recruit the guys we recruit. Nobody knows. And by the way, there's not a lot of recruiting done in the transfer portal. It's offering. There's not recruiting, it's paying. And we don't even know. All these people are doing it, we don't even know what we can do yet. This is an amazing deal.
“And again, I'm going to apologize to you, but I am ticked off that you asked me that right now, because I think you just cheated me. So if I keep talking, I cheat my players. And I'll cheat myself before I'll cheat my players. So you got another question about the transfer portal? I can list you a lot of schools you can call and ask them, they might have the better opinion than me. But me? I'm homed (sic) in on Ole Miss. I might even call Mr. (Eli) Manning and figure out something that I don't know about that place. And that's all I want. Chris Beard, what he's done has been incredible. But what my team's done has been incredible. And I'm not ready to move on. So Jud? I've followed what you said. I'm going to worry today about the guys I got in this program that have done an INCREDIBLE job this year, and that's it. And if that cost me later? So be it. But Tom Izzo isn't cheating the people that he has, that have been loyal to him, for this chaos that is going on out there.”
* More on the preparation for the Sweet 16: “When I came back Sunday night, (phsseeww sound effect), that was it. There was nothing on my mind but giving these guys a chance to win one more game, get to an Elite Eight and one more game and have a memory that'll last their entire life, their kids' life and their grandkids life. Because that's what it is. So excuse me for being passionate about it or pissed off about it, whichever words you want to use. But I'm not gonna talk about it, because it's not fair. It's not fair to the people.
“You could say it's fair to your program. I'll run my program like I want to run my program. And if people have a disagreement with that, God bless them. But these guys that gave me everything they could give me are gonna have a chance, and I'm not gonna screw it up by spending any time on other stuff. I don't eat, I don't sleep right now. So why the hell would I do something else that might benefit me a year from now? And really, it's not gonna benefit me now, because I don't know what I have. I don't know how much money I have, I don't know which players are leaving or staying. I don't have any idea. So why would I do that? A waste of time.”
* On his reaction to being asked about the portal: “It wasn't a preach. Don't do that to me. ‘Well, he's on a sermon now.’ No, no. You're talking about something that is wrong with what we're doing. We always talk about what's fair to the kids. That's what the NCAA, that's what everybody in the media. What is fair to the kids? I'm gonna do what's fair to the kids, and I'm gonna give them every ounce of energy I have until we lose. Then I don't worry about the next stage.”
* On the focus needed to get through this weekend to get to a Final Four: “Well, you get rid of the Double Ds that I talk about all the time – the distractions and dirtbags. There's a lot of them out there, and there's way more than there used to be. That's why I can't waste any other time. I mean, every night, I'm meeting with a player, I'm talking to a guy, I'm doing something, I'm working with my staff. Because (there's) too many of those distractions, that's why it's a shame.
“But I will say this, the last thing I'm gonna say about (the portal) – it started when the season started. We got schools recruiting kids right up, we got agents talking to kids on teams every day of the year. So that's what the average person doesn't realize. This transfer portal opened yesterday? It didn't even make it legal, because nobody cared. There are no rules. It just meant that you guys think it's opened. The transfer portal opened in September, as far as I'm concerned. And my job – forget the transfer portal, with everything – is keep the distractions and the dirtbags away from my guys the best I can. And I'll try to do that by talking to them. But I can't deal with their phones, I can't deal with their phone calls, I can't deal with all the things. So all I can tell them is you got a chance to do something that few people are going to get a chance to do in their lifetime. And don't, at the end of it, say to yourself, 'I wish I would have,' because I've had a couple guys that have left that I've talked to recently. 'I wish I would have.' That's bad. No wish-I-would-haves.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
Subscribe to the "Spartan Speak" podcast for new episodes weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts. And catch all of our podcasts and daily voice briefing at freep.com/podcasts.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tom Izzo sounds off on transfer portal opening during NCAA tournament
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