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Michigan State basketball head coach Tom Izzo had a chance to break the Big Ten all-time wins record on Tuesday night as the Spartans were hosting Indiana. With a win, Izzo would've passed legendary Indiana head coach Bob Knight to claim the record, but the Hoosiers weren't going to be the team that Izzo set the record against. Indiana ended up pulling off the upset, 71-67, but head coach Mike Woodson still had a lot of praise for Izzo after the game.
As an Indiana alum and someone who played under Bob Knight, Mike Woodson knows how good of a coach you have to be to be in the same conversation as him. Tom Izzo isn't just in the same conversation as Knight, but he is actually going to break his record at some point this season.
“Never once did. I knew,” Woodson said after the game when he was asked if he told his players about the record, according to an article from Sports Illustrated. “Tom Izzo is a helluva coach, man. He's a great coach. He's done it for a lot of years. He's won a lot of games and me mentioning Bob Knight in his arena, man? That means Tom Izzo is pretty god damn special. I mean really special. I didn't think I needed to tell our guys that. We're just trying to get off this slide and get a win. I thought we had a total team effort tonight from everybody and the zone (defense) helped us. We keep fighting tonight to win this ballgame.”
Izzo is as good as they come, but he will have to try at least one more time to get the record. The Spartans have a tough schedule from here on out, but they are going to win again to get Izzo the record.
As for Woodson and Indiana, this was a massive win. The Hoosiers have been struggling mightily recently and it didn't seem like things would get better on the road against the #11 team in the country. Well, Indiana came out on top, and their stifling zone defense was a big reason why.
“We played it [zone defense] against Michigan in the second half and held them to 21 points,” Woodson said. “This team really gets up and down the floor. You take bad shots they're running it right you can make shots and they run it right back at you. So we just felt like the only way to slow them down was to play zone and the zone was effective and we came out of here with a win.”
What's ironic is that Indiana stopped Izzo from breaking Knight's record by using the zone defense tactic that Knight rarely used. On Tuesday, it worked big time.
“Me and Jim Todd, one of my consultants, we kid a lot about zone because he was a zone guy when I was in the NBA,” Woodson added. “I won a playoff series, down one and having to win a game on the road to come home and close it out in seven. He convinced me to play a 2-3 zone and we ended up winning that game. (It was an Atlanta Hawks vs. Milwaukee Bucks series in 2010.) I couldn't thank him enough. I've got great coaches who work for me that truly help me with the 2-3 zone. We worked on it the last few days and it paid off for us tonight.”
Tom Izzo will have to wait at least one more game to get his record. The Spartans are now 19-5 overall and 10-3 in Big Ten play. They have lost three of their last four. Indiana improved to 15-10 overall and 6-8 in conference play with the win. Izzo will look to break the record on Saturday as the Spartans hit the road to take on Illinois.
