March 27, 1999, will be remembered as one of the most disheartening nights for Spartan basketball.
MSU was in the Final Four of the NCAA semifinals for the first time since their national championship in 1979, and lost to the No. 1-seed Duke. It also became the first night couch burning and rioting was linked to an MSU basketball game , something head coach Tom Izzo has frequently spoken out against.
The 1999 incident resulted in well over 5,000 students taking to the streets of East Lansing causing nearly half a million dollars in property damages.
The event disgusted basketball coach Tom Izzo , who was still in St. Petersburg, Florida, at the time.
“I hope they never attend another Michigan State basketball game as long as they live, ” Izzo said.
According to Izzo, the riots did nothing to help the university’s image and especially harmed the recruiting process.
“If you have season tickets,” he said, staring directly into television cameras, “I’ll buy them and I hope you never come to a Michigan State game again.”
Similar revelries took place in 2003 and 2005, after NCAA tournament losses to Texas and the University of North Carolina, respectively.
On March 30, 2003, about 2,000 people flooded East Lansing streets, causing about $40,000 in damage. Police released more than 135 canisters of tear gas on campus and in the city, attempting to disperse the revelers.
In 2005, 21 students were arrested at Cedar Village and the East Lansing Police Department found themselves under fire for releasing tear gas within 20 minutes of the end of the UNC game to disperse large crowds, according to State News archives.
After other basketball losses, students have reacted by burning couches, as recently as 2013.
“The people who take part in such activity are not true Spartan fans,” said MSU spokesperson Jason Cody . “MSU needs the community to dispel itself of the notion that these activities are OK, or that they are some type of ‘tradition’ to be proud of.”
East Lansing Police Lieutenant Steve Gonzalez believes that there is not yet a stigma on MSU as a ‘riot school’ but the trend of violent celebrations is troubling.
“In my 17 years here, I have noticed that the bigger disturbances tend to follow sporting events,” Gonzalez said. “Football related incidents are growing but basketball has always caused the biggest reaction.”
And for Tom Izzo, the riots have been a black mark on his twenty years at MSU.
“They undid a lot of what we tried to build,” Izzo said.
