The Michigan State Spartans male basketball coach, Tom Izzo, seemed to be upset about a question about the opening of the transfer portal on Tuesday while his team was preparing for Sweet 16.
The NCAA transfer portal opened on Monday, with several movements already made. When Izzo addressed the media on the next confrontation of the March madness of the team against Ole Miss, he naturally received a question about the portal, but took a controversial tone.
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Michigan’s head coach of Michigan, Tom Izzo, gestures during the New Mexico game in the NCAA tournament, on Sunday, March 23, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogocki)
He said he “marked” that the journalist asked him the question.
“I am not dealing with that at all. The only thing I would deal with is that you do not run players outside. So you have to have places to collect transfers,” Izzo said about the program that manages the portal, through Detroit Free Press. “And maybe we would have one (place) if everyone came back. Maybe we wouldn’t do it. If you don’t have points, why are you doing that? What can you get to someone better? Can I get a better girlfriend, because one I have is not good enough? I don’t know, do you get a better wife, because it’s not good enough?
“It is not a charged question, it is one that I really have zero interest in answering, because I think it is ridiculous that the NCAA or any other entity together these two things that people like you have to ask these questions. And I value that you have to ask them. And I bother me when people talk to our children about them.
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Michigan’s head coach of Michigan, Tom Izzo, shouts during New Mexico’s game, on Sunday, March 23, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogocki)
“I saw what happened in a school. The teams have the opportunity to play at the Sweet 16, and people are entering the transfer portal. Children have to do what they have to do, and they are not really doing what they have to do. They are doing what their parents or their agents tell them to do because they make them going to practice, go in the same costume unless they leave the team.
Later, Izzo added that he is trying to concentrate on preparing for Ole Miss and did not want to “deceive” his players.
Izzo is one of the best university basketball coaches of all time. He has been in the program since the 1995-96 season and guided the team to a national championship in 2000.
Chief coach Tom Izzo speaks with his state players in Michigan in the second half of the game against New Mexico, Sunday, March 23, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogocki)
The Spartans have failed to reach the last four in recent years. The last time the team got so far in 2019, when it lost to Texas Tech.
