We’ve long admired Tom Izzo’s Michigan State program. His teams always play smart, hard and always fundamentally sound basketball.
When Izzo’s name came up in the Adidas scandal, it was only because Christian Dawkins essentially called him unbribable and complimented his integrity.
But Michigan State has not been problem free.
There have been allegations of sexual assault by Spartans and Izzo’s behavior was at the least questionable, including contacting a witness. We’ve also seen his fiery side periodically, including this spring when he got into it with player Gabe Brown as the team left the court during halftime, putting his hands on his player as they walked off the court.