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Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sport
Kevin Sweeney

College Hoops Fans Ripped Michigan State’s Tom Izzo Over His Bizarre Rant After Loss to Northwestern

Legendary Michigan State Spartans head coach Tom Izzo unleashed a bizarre rant about analytics in the aftermath of an 88–74 loss to Northwestern on Sunday night.

Izzo, 68, has been openly critical of many of the modern elements of basketball in recent years, including several tirades about the failings of the transfer portal. Sunday, he took aim at advanced metrics in a seemingly-unprompted press conference diatribe during which he referred to analytics as “phony”.

“I hate analytics, because they’re phony. Sooner or later, you look in a guy’s heart, you look in a guy’s eye, and then you find out about a guy,” Izzo said. “Everyone in the NBA and college now, they want analytics. Analytics, what does analytics mean here? Does that mean we won the game? Analytics are crap.”

Here’s Izzo’s full two-minute answer:

What makes this rant so strange is that Izzo wasn’t even asked about analytics. His answer came in response to a question about how he defines “Spartan basketball,” spending only a few seconds on defense and rebounding before pivoting to the supposed pitfalls of statistics.

Izzo later joked about “[getting] the football pads out” for rebounding drills in practice this week, though quipped that he’ll “probably get sued” for doing so.

The rant certainly had college hoops fans talking, with many criticizing Izzo for falling behind the times of modern basketball. Some even suggested it may be time for him to consider retirement.

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