Twice the Fun: Illinois' Brad Underwood vs. Michigan State's Tom Izzo

The Illini and Spartans coaches discuss the joy and pain of their Big Ten home-and-home

Jan 13, 2023; Champaign, Illinois, USA; Illinois Fighting Illini head coach Brad Underwood, left, shakes hands with Michigan State Spartans head coach Tom Izzo before the first half at State Farm Center. Mandatory Credit: Ron Johnson-Imagn Images | Ron Johnson-Imagn Images

Illinois' first matchup with Michigan State of the season – a high-wire 80-78 Spartans win in East Lansing – delivered more action and emotion than can normally be squeezed into a single Big Ten game.

That's why, even though the Illini came out on the wrong end of the January heartbreaker, and even though they're facing a perilous, potentially season-defining rematch Saturday (7 p.m. CT, on FOX), Illinois coach Brad Underwood would love the chance to take a swing at the Spartans and his frenemy Tom Izzo in an annual home-and-home.

"I wish we got a crack at everybody – I wish the league would play 34 league games and just play everybody twice," Underwood said in the aftermath of the first MSU game.

"That wouldn't that be fun. You don't think the fans in here didn't enjoy that? How about the fans in Champaign? We get to have that game, too? How about let's play 34 league games and we all play each other twice? That'd be fun."

The Big Ten, now bloated to 18 teams, has become too big to back-to-back – at least across the board. But that suits Izzo just fine.

"What do you think I am, a masochist?" he said, perhaps only half-jokingly, at the thought of a guaranteed annual double dose of Illinois. "Am I glad about it? Hell no, I'm not glad about it. But I think it's good for our league. I think it's good for the country. I think it's the kind of games people want to see. It'll be good for their fans, and it'll be good for us."

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Coaches often praise one another, tossing around plaudits like Frisbees and slapping backs as easily as they flap gums. But the mutual respect between Underwood and Izzo, a couple of kindred red asses (meant in the best possible way), is pretty transparent.

"I was a JUCO coach in Daytona Beach," Underwood said, "and I would get up on Sunday mornings or Saturday mornings and watch his teams play. And that'll tell you how old both of us are getting and how long he's been doing it, but I always said I wanted to do it like that. I wanted to be that. I wanted my teams to play that hard.

"You know, you emulate guys and you befriend them, and you start talking to them, then you find out how much you truly have in common. What you truly value is much more than a win, and it's much more than ... Yeah, he's a rip-your-head off competitor. Guess what? So am I. We want to go the parking lot, he and I will both go fight and see who wins, and then we'll hug each other and respect each other afterwards."

In that sense, maybe Izzo has a bit of masochist in him after all.

"As much as you say, I sometimes don't want to play in those kinds of games, you know ... I do want to play in those kind of games," Izzo said. "Because if I asked Jeremy [Fears Jr.], 'Do you want to play them 10 times?' he'd say, 'Yes.'

"I love guys like that."

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