MSU Players React to Izzo's Viral Comment to Teng
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EAST LANSING, Mich. --- A pretty funny comment from Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo to Kur Teng went over the air during the 10th-ranked Spartans game at Oregon on Tuesday.
"Kur, you can't guard my mother!" Izzo was recorded saying during the 68-52 win over the Ducks.
Video of it spread around the internet pretty quickly. Izzo was asked about it following the game, and he further added onto it by joking that Teng was going to be visiting his mother, Dorothy, in Appleton, Wisconsin, rather than flying back with the team from Eugene to East Lansing.
While the picture of a Division I basketball player defending a 99-year-old woman is pretty unusual, other MSU players think those types of critiques are pretty normal for Izzo.
Players' Reactions
"I don't know if I want to say it," senior forward Jaxon Kohler said on Thursday when asked how many times the same line has been used on him. "I don't know if I want to say that to [the media]. But it's a good amount of times, especially early on."
"You can't guard my mother" is apparently one of Izzo's many personal cliches. A television camera and microphone just happened to pick it up when Izzo said it during a huddle.
"Coaches have things and idiosyncrasies and things, and I must've said that 100 times," Izzo said. "In all fairness and honesty, number one, I ain't worried about Kur, because I've told him that 100 times. I've told him that in every practice."
Senior center Carson Cooper says he's heard it before, too.
"He drops it a lot," he said about the line. "That was the first time the camera was able to get it. I think I was telling somebody, one of my buddies or something, they were making jokes about it, and I was like, 'Yeah, there's nothing new.' We hear that all the time."
Cooper actually has questions about if Izzo's mother is actually 99 years old or not.
"I feel like he always says 'my 99-year-old mother,' but I feel like she's been 99 for, like, four years," Cooper said. "I feel like since my freshman year, he said his 99-year-old mother could guard you or something."
Cooper also said that the team learned that the clip was going around immediately after the game against Oregon. Denham Wojcik got word of it first after checking social media, and then the team saw other people posting AI-generated images of Teng playing 1-on-1 with Izzo's mother, too. One of those was posted by Steven Izzo.
Update from Steven Izzo on Kur Teng vs Izzo’s Mother💀 pic.twitter.com/9UeASHcVkW
— Michigan State Hoops (@michsthoops) January 21, 2026
As for Teng, Cooper says he's taking the whole public ordeal pretty well.
"Yeah, he's joking," Cooper said. "He knows what it is. He's heard worse stuff, anyway."
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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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