Latest Tom Izzo News
Michigan State's Izzo says a few players could enter draft
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said “a bunch of guys" in college basketball are putting their names in the NBA draft. “I think that's the popular thing to do,” Izzo said Wednesday. A few Spartans may join the trend, declaring themselves eligible to at least be...
Michigan State guard Tyson Walker returning for 5th season
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan State standout Tyson Walker is returning for his fifth season. Walker announced his decision Monday with an Instagram post, giving a boost to coach Tom Izzo’s chances of contending for a title. The 6-foot-1 guard averaged a...
Marquette's Shaka Smart voted men's AP coach of the year
Shaka Smart has packed an entire career's worth of experiences into 14 years as a college head coach. He led VCU to an improbable Final Four as a 30-something wunderkind in 2011, guided mighty Texas to a Big 12 Tournament title during six otherwise tepid years in Austin, and now has turned...
Princeton's journey becomes face of March Madness' COVID era
Princeton forward Tosan Evbuomwan spent his first three college seasons enduring one disappointment after another. Reaching the NCAA Tournament and advancing to the Sweet 16 made it all worthwhile. After the 2020 Ivy League Tournament was canceled, after the entire...
Transfer portal provided boost for most March Madness teams
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan State coach Tom Izzo is not a big fan of the transfer portal, lamenting that it gives young athletes an easy out instead of an opportunity to overcome challenges. “I’ll say until the day I die, I do not see anything good for the players in...
Jerome Tang has rising Kansas State feeling sweet again
MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Jerome Tang was tearing around his property on an unseasonably warm spring day not long ago, just before Kansas State headed down Interstate 70 for the Big 12 Tournament, when he noticed his four-wheeler was running out of fuel. So, the Wildcats' coach did...
College hoops staffs specialize to meet roster, NIL demands
Kelvin Sampson has been around college basketball long enough to remember when preseason practices started in October following a true offseason, teams remained largely intact for multiple seasons and players weren’t permitted to pursue endorsement deals. It might as well be a...
The maddest March ever? Underdogs head to the Sweet 16
We know you're upset. Underdogs have blown up every bracket in the country. An upside of the upsets: perhaps the maddest March ever. Defending national champion Kansas and fellow No. 1 seed Purdue are gone — the Boilermakers with a slice of unwanted history. The...
Michigan State outlasts Marquette; Izzo back to Sweet 16
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Tom Izzo leaned on star guard and native New Yorker Tyson Walker to get Michigan State to Madison Square Garden for the Sweet 16. Walker, a fourth-year player who grew up in Westbury on Long Island, delivered against Marquette in March Madness on Sunday night,...
Marquette coach Smart faces mentor Izzo in NCAA 2nd round
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Watching Tom Izzo's Michigan State team win the 2000 national title was a seminal moment for Shaka Smart, then a 22-year-old graduate assistant at Division II California University of Pennsylvania. “That cemented in my mind college basketball was where I...
