Here’s both of the hard fouls. On Ayo and Cockburn.
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I actually think more of Tom Izzo than most anyone on here. I didn’t say he would TELL Sissoko to play dirty. I just said he wouldn’t NOT tell him not to. The fact remains, Sissoko has played this way, and in fact had another “hard” foul earlier in the game. Did Tom tell him after that foul to go back in there and NOT foul hard. I don’t think so.
Perhaps Tom is a friend of yours. He is not a “friend” of mine, but I have met him on two occasions and I find him to be really quite charming…off the court, but he sure is NOT charming when he is coaching his players. Not in practice and not in games. Oh, and he hates Michigan.
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I don’t think he literally would tell his players “Go knock that guy out” or anything. But his whole mantra is about physicality and toughness. He’s always getting in his players’ faces and challenging their manhood. That can lead to a player getting carried away.
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Yeah this guy seems like a clown. Has since deleted the tweet and issued an apology because he didn’t realize what he was saying. Give me a break.
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I didn’t see the game, but I don’t think you need context to say that Sissoko hitting Kofi on the head should have been a flagrant 1. If they deemed it a “basketball play”, then they also deemed Sissoko to have such horrible hand-eye coordination that he missed the ball by over a foot when he went for the strip. Ridiculous. Those D1 athletes are always so terribly uncoordinated.
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I think there’s pretty clearly an element of Sissoko adjusting to the college game. He goal tends a lot and has some hard fouls, a lot because I think he’s keeping up with the pace.
I also think that the culmination of all the dirty plays is a really slippery slope. That game was riddled with fouls and the refs never really got it under control. Cockburn was getting mauled all night and he started hitting back, Sissoko had the two cheap shots, it wasn’t a great situation. I think failing to call the initial review an F1 led to the F2 later.
Tough spot all around.
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Didn’t see this game, but culmination of all the dirty plays is a really slippery slope makes sense to me. It’s not uncommon for a failure to control minor aggression leads to major aggression later.
Also notable that the reaction is a pretty delayed one. The game was played 2 days ago already and only now the clip’s spreading around? Manufactured outrage, to an extent.
He definitely “challenges their manhood.” I have seen that when our staff was invited to a practice. He’s a great coach with an incredible record. He’s a Hall of Famer, but/and he absolutely coaches toughness and physicality!
Let me just say this, too. Coaching is teaching. At it’s core it is teaching of a very high order, and I believe some of my best teaching was on the basketball floor and the athletic field. Coaching is motivating. It is inspiring. It is teaching. It is also correcting behaviors that are not acceptable.
I saw the Michigan State player behave in an unacceptable way the other night. I can say to all of you with every ounce of honesty I have, if one of my players had committed an egregious act like the one that was committed the other night, a dirty play, at least dirty in my opinion, we wouldn’t have had to wait for the officials to eject the player. His coach would have taken him off the floor, and he would have been coached not to play that way in the future. Frankly, he would have been coached well before that, that that is not the way we play. That’s coaching.
Now, in fairness, I never coached for millions of dollars. I was paid a few hundred, seriously, at least at the beginning, or a few thousands of dollars at the end. And, too, I wasn’t coaching for the big time stakes that Tom Izzo is involved with, so it probably isn’t fair for me to judge and condemn what Izzo may have or may not have done. For all I know, he may have had that serious talk with the young man. He may have done that coaching, too. I hope so. Again, I think Tom is a great coach, and I know that is not a particularly popular position to take on here, and he coaches toughness and physicality, but coaching is more than recruiting and X’s and O’s. It’s teaching.
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I have zero skin in the game. I think he’s a terrific coach but has the state of Michigan carrying his water regardless. I think the whole foul thing is Kofi was giving it good, as was Mady. Mady fouled Ayo hard and got ejected. I don’t see how his charm off the court and on the court matters. He loves physical play and believes that’s they way you win on the defensive end and I can’t see anyone that would disagree. I just don’t see the big deal, Mady got ejected the game ended and Illinois fans are angry.
The Mgoblog roundtable this morning on WTKA basically surmised that this was Izzo finally realizing that he’s got 4 good players, and a Center position with 4 guys and 20 fouls. This is definitely Izzo’s coaching plan moving forward because it’s working.
I didn’t see the Illinois-MSU game, but with that amount of uncalled contact I would assume the B1G officiating coordinator would be sending out a message to the crews to keep an eye on Sissoko at the very least. The fact that Izzo has made a career out of bully-ball means the B1G officiating will likely allow it to continue. Slippery slope is when the hard fouls go against MSU & their core 4 guys I guess. A MSU - Illinois rematch in the BTT - if it happens - will be must-see TV.
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Weirdest name popping up today is Luke Walton
LOL. Son of Conference of Champions in the B1G. Sounds polarizing but entertaining.
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slug
(more words)
This only works if the opposing C can’t hit FTs.
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…or if you knock out the other team’s best players.
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Not to continue rehashing this, but read this quote from Underwood here that definitely makes it clear he and Izzo won’t be exchanging St. Patrick’s Day cards next month.
“There’s a reason they foul as much as any team in the country. They mucked the game up, made it ugly,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said after the game.
I also chuckled a little since that is basically a description of his first two Illinois teams (at least in terms of fouling a lot).
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I think some people said a couple weeks ago that MSU was going to muck games up. Underwood isn’t wrong with what he says but Izzo still has his job of trying to get the most out of his team. I am all good with Underwood not being pleased with it.
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Fun fact, UDM didn’t finish 3rd in the horizon league because they used in-conference RPI to determine the standings. Here were the final standings:
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Hilariously, Oakland finished 3rd place at 10-10 ahead of Detroit and Northern Kentucky which both had strictly better records.
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They used RPI? As in the old, antiquated, horrible, lack-of-analytics method of ranking teams?