Derrick Nix Welcomed Back to Michigan State Spartan Basketball

Emotionally Broken Derrick Nix Welcomed Back to Spartan Basketball On April 3, 2012 Derrick Nix ran a red light and was stopped. He was turning left off of

Emotionally Broken Derrick Nix Welcomed Back to Spartan Basketball

On April 3, 2012 Derrick Nix ran a red light and was stopped. He was turning left off of Lake Lansing Road on to Abbot road. When the officer noticed the smell of marijuana things quick spiraled downward for the MSU senior to be. They culminated on Thursday with Derrick pleading guilty to impaired driving while operating a vehicle at the 54B District Court in East Lansing.

He had been suspended from the basketball team since the incident until yesterday. A tearful and in my opinion emotionally broken Nix stepped to the platform to address the media. With tears pouring out of his eyes and at times shaking, an apologetic and remorseful Nix said, “From this point on, I’ve got to become a man,” acknowledging his wrong doing. He added, “I want to walk a straight line.”

The fireworks began soon after Tom Izzo stepped to the platform. There was no doubt he was upset. When a question of the vehicle Nix was driving was asked you could almost sense his blood pressure on a meteoric rise. 

The police report wrongly listed Nix as driving a 2011 Dodge Charger, it was a 2007, and some began to question the vehicle. Izzo didn’t like that, “I took incredible offense to the thought of why they were making the car a big deal.”

Those that have covered this team for any amount of time were not shocked that Nix returned to the team. In fact the day after the arrest, April 4, 2012, Joe Rexrode from the Lansing State Journal and Matt Charboneau from the Detroit News joined us on Spartan Nation Radio and we all agreed if Nix wanted to return he would be back.

Izzo and his staff will give Nix serious physical, social, educational and athletic mountains to climb on his return.  None of those mountains will force him to lose games next season as Izzo’s lone senior unless he doesn’t meet them.

Izzo will not be a $4 million dollar a year babysitter and he acknowledged that by saying, “I’m gonna make him do some things. My staff will be on him. But I’m not watching him morning, noon and night.”