What MSU's Tom Izzo Said Following Emphatic Win over UCLA
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EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Tom Izzo's squad needed a game like this.
Behind a dominant first half and a bunch of threes, No. 15 Michigan State rolled over UCLA, 82-59, at the Breslin Center on Tuesday night. MSU entered losers of three of its last four, but now gets to improve to 21-5 overall and 11-4 during Big Ten play.
Izzo is not one to puff out his chest after performances like these. He said that that wasn't the same Bruins team that he watched on film the last couple of days, but 23-point victories in the Big Ten don't pop out of nowhere. Shooting 14-for-27 (51.9%) from beyond the arc in this one, setting a new season-high for made threes, certainly helps.
Spartan Nation was there to capture video of Izzo's entire press conference. We've provided it below here.
Watch Tom Izzo here:
More on Tuesday's Game
One treat for Izzo during this one is that his childhood friend, Steve Mariucci, former San Francisco 49ers and Detroit Lions head coach, was in attendance for this one. They were talking on the bench to one another during warmups, and Mariucci sat among the media during Izzo's presser.
"You can see why I like football better than basketball," Izzo joked during his opening statement. "We go to Wisconsin, and we can't make a shot, and they can't miss one. And we come here, and we can't miss a shot, and they [UCLA] can't make one. And then Wisconsin goes to Ohio State, and they can't hit a three. My sport is harder than yours. It's harder to coach."
This certainly looked like a much improved MSU team from the last time everyone saw it. The Spartans took the same number of threes as they did in Madison last Friday, but their makes went from eight to a season-high 14. Wisconsin ended up shooting 15-for-35 (42.9) from deep; UCLA went 8-for-32 (25.0%).
One of the big helps was that Michigan State had more help for point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. that it has had in the past handful of games. Fears still dropped 16 points with 10 assists, but his teammates were spreading the wealth much better in this one than they were against the Badgers. MSU only had one non-Fears assist at Wisconsin on Friday, and it came with less than two minutes to go; during this game, there were 11 assists from players besides Fears.
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A 2025 graduate from Michigan State University, Cotsonika brings a wealth of experience covering the Spartans from Rivals and On3 to his role as Michigan State Spartans Beat Writer on SI. At Michigan State, he was also a member of the world-renowned Spartan marching band for two seasons.
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