Izzo talked about the rivalry<\/a> and the importance of it.<\/p>\nWhat did Izzo say?<\/h3>\n
When speaking about the rivalry, Izzo said, \u201cAs long as I’m alive, the rivalry will be the rivalry.\u201d<\/p>\n
To me that is a very telling statement. It first speaks on how important this game is to him this season. He knows MSU needs this win for their tournament resume and that a loss would be hard to overcome. Izzo also knows how important of a win this is for the scope of the basketball program. Beating Michigan is always important when it comes to recruiting the state of Michigan. Losing to the Wolverines could give them an edge over the Spartans for any in-state recruit.<\/p>\n
This quote also tells me that Izzo is doing everything he can to make this rivalry a priority even when he\u2019s done coaching. At some point Izzo no longer will be roaming the sidelines at the Breslin Center, but that doesn\u2019t mean he won\u2019t still have an impact on the program. Izzo\u2019s telling us this rivalry will still be one of the most important things even after he\u2019s no longer coaching.<\/p>\n
Izzo also talked about the importance of a win in this game<\/h3>\n
Tom Izzo also spoke about this game specifically saying that, \u201cRight now, we’re both struggling a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
To be fair, Michigan is struggling a lot more than MSU, but Izzo\u2019s point still stands. Both the Spartans and Wolverines are desperate for a win, Michigan especially. At this point in the season, Michigan has nothing to lose. They won\u2019t make the NCAA Tournament and probably won\u2019t make the NIT either, so why not try to play spoiler to MSU\u2019s season.<\/p>\n
This game, even though it features two struggling teams, is still extremely important. Michigan State\u2019s resume can\u2019t take a loss to Michigan, so for that reason alone this is a must win. But if I know anything about Tom Izzo, it\u2019s that he will never overlook Michigan. He\u2019ll have his team ready to go and put on a show in front of a packed Breslin Center crowd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the best rivalries in sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":13096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[190,189,504,211],"class_list":["post-13037","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\/13037","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=13037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}