MSU Basketball Losing What It Prides Itself on Most?

Exactly one week after Michigan State coach Tom Izzo went off about the timing of the spring window of the transfer portal, his program saw three players go that very route.

Starr Portice, Michigan State Spartans On SI

Michigan State men's basketball suffered quite an abundance of hardship just two days after its season ended against the No. 1 overall seed Auburn in the Elite Eight.

A trio of Spartans hit the transfer portal -- Tre Holloman, Gehrig Normand and Xavier Booker -- an unusual wave of departures for this program.

Tom Izzo has prided his program in its loyalty and culture, crediting its ability to keep players around.

But on Tuesday, the Spartans fell victim to the very thing he may hate the most about this current era of the sport. And it doesn't seem there was much thought.

For all three of them to have opted to test the waters less than 48 hours after their season ended says there was likely already decisions being made while the Spartans were making their tournament run.

Maybe that's not the case, but not likely. The fact that Tuesday's events occurred exactly a week after Izzo publicly praised his players for their effort they gave to him this season and emphasized his loyalty to them by not placing an ounce of his focus on available transfers shows just how blatantly different the Hall-of-Fame coach's values are from those of today's college athletics.

The portal can be a great thing -- it gives players better opportunities like greener pastures and a better financial situation. But there's something to be said about a player leaving a place that was loyal to them.

"What my team's done has been incredible," Izzo had said just days before his team faced off against Ole Miss in the Sweet 16. "And I'm not ready to move on. So, Jud [Heathcote], I've followed what you said. I'm going to worry today about the guys I got in this program that have done an incredible job this year, and that's it.

"And if that costs me later, so be it. But Tom Izzo isn't cheating the people that he has that have been loyal to him for this chaos that is going on out there."

Tuesday further proved that no program is safe from this new era of college sports. And unfortunately, it proved that loyalty doesn't mean what it once did in college athletics.

This isn't to criticize these players or say the decisions they made were wrong. They've done what's best for them, and at the end of the day, they shouldn't be faulted for that.

What is clear, though, is that the Spartan culture that Izzo has been so proud of for so long is thinning. And everything he has feared about the portal have become inevitable consequences.

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