I’m just going to say it. Izzo has been washed for the last 5 years. College basketball has passed him by. I hope he stays until he’s 80 so he can run that program into the ground. Kids don’t respond to his kind of coaching anymore.
Also before you tell me about the final four 3 years ago, I think Cassius covered up a lot for Izzo. A generational college player can cover up a lot for a coach.
I don’t agree. I think the Winston years give him a lot of cover and rightfully so. Those teams were super elite. Winston, JJJ, Bridges, Tillman, McQuaid, etc. Just fantastic. And he threw it all away for Ben Carter. Tee hee
I won’t go that far, but I don’t think he’s quite the tourney coach he used to be. From 2016 onward, they’ve only made it out of the first weekend once - and they were a trendy pick to win the national title two of those years (‘16 and ‘18).
17-19 he won or shared the B10 title. Three years in a row. That’s not that long ago, and Beilein was making him look like an antiquated fossil all the while. He’ll be back again, I’d bet, even though the facts on paper make it look like maybe that 17-19 run was more Winston than program.
You don’t become washed winning 3 straight conference titles, that just doesn’t happen.
Probably more that the rest of the league got better. Illinois is here to stay I think. Michigan as well. Purdue. Wisconsin is getting back to Bo Ryan consistency.
I wonder about Illinois. Kofi’s kind of an anomaly. Seems to me that if you can play two ways in college, you’re likely a quality NBA prospect, which he’s not. The kind of college centers who aren’t desired are the ones are more the slow-footed scorers like our guy, or the rim protectors who don’t give you much else like Myles Johnson. Kofi’s a serious threat at both ends in college.
If Davidson finds another Kofi, sure. Otherwise they could fall back. Those other programs have shown they can thrive without a center like that.
I’ve stopped waiting for MSU to go into a long decline; they won’t. Switched to waiting for Wisconsin to fall off a level. Hopefully Johnny Davis’ departure does it, but I’m not counting on it.
Illinois is recruiting pretty good though.
Yeah Underwood is a good coach. Recruits pretty well from all over. Has a solid system but is adaptable. I think they’re in a good spot moving forward, maybe not this good with Kofi, but they’ll stay relevant. In general the B1G is in a pretty good spot. We’ll see which teams break through with tournament success moving forward
I can’t wait until Kofi goes away.
IMO the B1G power structure moving forward looks like this:
I got to OSU before I realized where Michigan was gonna end up
Don’t be ridiculous.
Purdue over OSU. C’mon now.
The real big ten power structure:
Typical from what I’ve seen from Izzo before.
Honestly I think there are several variables that are at play that will make the future of the league very interesting. Some to name a few…
For MSU, all of those apply. Izzo has been able to recruit well AND retain players. This past year he actually saw a bunch of guys “processed out” of the program more than usual and brought in an immediate transfer to fill a need. It hasn’t been perfect, but he’s trying to adapt.
Sure it’s aberrant, but aberrant stuff happens literally every single game. Does DJ miss 18 minutes of the first half every game? Is Sissoko their best big every game? Basically every other coach can handle aberration and just shrug it off and say something like “well our scout showed we should let him shoot, and credit to him, he made them”. Instead, Tom Izzo lies. Rocket Watts scored 7 points on 9 shots a game last year, and tallied 21 on 15 against us. Did Tom bring that up? Did Juwan? Of course not.
What angers me about this is that DJ and Terrance are young men aspiring to make a living at basketball (for free), and Tom - literally the most job-secure man in the sport (making millions) can halve their actual production in a room full of reporters and nobody will ever say a d*** word about it outside of angry posts on forums like these. Suggesting he’s not wrong when he is literally peddling lies seems pretty silly to me.
Moreover, he does this to his own players - you and BQ spelled out on the pod how the media’s treatment of Brown likely stemmed from pre-game interviews.
I think we need to keep this thread alive forever and keep posting terrible Izzo stuff regularly. I hate the guy and think he’s bad for college sports in general and reading all of this is therapeutic for me.
It’s like getting to take a sledgehammer to furniture when you’re feeling pent up. We need to release all our negative Izzo energy.
Second. Don’t close the thread until we need a part 2!
And I’ve seen him lay hands on his own unpaid athletes several times. Juwan saw red and slapped a coach for shoving Faulds and Williams, I know which coach I’d rather play for.