When Tom Izzo greeted the media after an ugly come-from-behind Michigan State victory he rocked the mic right. His Spartans played such an AWFUL first half tonight that they were borderline unwatchable. They still managed to beat the Iowa Hawkeyes 59-56 in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament, despite scoring just 20 points in the first 20 minutes.
Tom Izzo did a Jimmy “B. Rabbit” Smith (Eminem’s character in “8 Mile”) style mic drop to end his postgame press conference.
“thanks for putting up with us tonight, see ya later,” is what Izzo said as he left the room. “Now we didn’t play good, but I’m telling you, you have to give Iowa a lot of credit for that. They made our life miserable tonight.”
Very true, Michigan State shot 26%, went 0-8 from three, 57% from the line in the first half. Tom Izzo is very well liked by the media because he can be self-deprecating and he stays grounded despite all that he’s accomplished (one national title, six Final Fours)
“Disappointed because now I can’t say we went 32 games not showing up, because we didn’t show up the first half. But I can say 98 percent of this year, we’ve shown up every game, and I’ll look at this as an out-of-body experience and get ready for Ohio State,” Izzo said during Q&A.
The Spartans play the Buckeyes in the Big Ten Tournament semi-finals tomorrow.
Izzo did a mea culpa in his opening statement even before taking media questions.
“I thought, I have to blame myself, because I made a big deal about us showing up for 31 times, and we didn’t show up today for the first half and that really does fall on me.”
I can’t disagree. During the game, I made a few tweets from press row about how bad they were playing in the first half.
really #michst really? #msubb you’re not going to play like this tonight are you? I think Izzo’s halftime speech will be….colorful
— Paul M. Banks (@PaulMBanks) March 16, 2013
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, a Google News site generating millions of visitors. He’s an author who also contributes regularly to MSN, Fox Sports , Chicago Now, Walter Football.com and Yardbarker
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