{"id":11558,"date":"2024-01-08T17:45:56","date_gmt":"2024-01-08T22:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=11558"},"modified":"2024-01-08T17:03:27","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T22:03:27","slug":"tom-izzo-embarrassed-after-loss-to-northwestern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=11558","title":{"rendered":"Tom Izzo \u201cembarrassed\u201d after loss to Northwestern"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Izzo didn’t hold back in his post-game presser when talking about Michigan State’s loss to Northwestern.<\/h2>\n

\u201cEmbarrassed.\u201d That\u2019s what Tom Izzo<\/a> felt after Michigan State\u2019s 88-74 loss to Northwestern<\/a> on Sunday night. The game was close all throughout the first half until the Wildcats closed on a 20-5 run to end the half.<\/p>\n

Going into this game, we all knew it was likely going to be extremely physical. As is almost every Big Ten game. Michigan State<\/a> unfortunately did not match Northwestern\u2019s physicality.<\/p>\n

Tom Izzo spoke on this in his postgame press conference and said that, \u201cThey (Northwestern) kicked our butt in every physical way they could.\u201d<\/p>\n

You aren\u2019t going to win many games in the Big Ten if the other team is more physical and last night showed just that. We have the better team, on paper, but the Wildcats worked harder, were more physical and wanted it more. That\u2019s why they won the game so easily.<\/p>\n

Tom Izzo challenges his team<\/h3>\n

This by far was the best part of Izzo\u2019s press conference last night. Izzo every season has a few moments where he challenges his team. Sunday night was the latest example for this team.<\/p>\n

As we already discussed, Izzo was not happy with his team\u2019s physicality in this game. It also seemed, at times, that the Spartans didn\u2019t look motivated, like part of them didn\u2019t want to be there. That\u2019s why this quote from Izzo is perfect.<\/p>\n

\u201cSooner or later you look at a guy’s heart. You look into the guy’s eye and then you find out about a guy… Sooner or later, guys gotta just muscle up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some might find this quote a little disrespectful to his players, but I think it\u2019s perfect. He challenges his players without calling anybody out. Izzo wants to know who can respond after a tough game like this and who will fold when the times get tough. Tom knows his players better than anyone else, so I\u2019m sure this was a calculated thing to say to motivate his players instead of him just venting his frustration after a tough loss.<\/p>\n

The Spartans will have their chance to respond and show Izzo what they\u2019re made of. Illinois is just as physical of a team as Northwestern, if not more. If they don\u2019t show up again, this game could get ugly. So MSU will have to be just as ready mentally and physically to win on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Izzo didn’t hold back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":11574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[190,189,504,211],"class_list":["post-11558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-news","tag-tom-izzo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}