The men’s basketball team picked up its third consecutive conference win Sunday against Northwestern, but Izzo was far from happy with MSU’s performance.
MSU (12-5 overall, 3-1 Big Ten) had an uneven effort against the Wildcats, coming up short through the first 40 minutes before defeating Northwestern 84-77 in overtime.
The Spartans led by as many as 11 in the second half, but Northwestern freshman forward Vic Law drained a 3-pointer with 3:05 remaining to tie the game at 68. MSU needed a pair of clutch free throws from junior forward Denzel Valentine to tie the game at 72 and force overtime.
Although the game ended up becoming MSU’s first overtime win of the season, head coach Tom Izzo said Northwestern deserved to win.
“There hasn’t been many times in my career I’ve complained about shot selection and my team, we took a couple of ridiculous shots today,” Izzo said after the game on Sunday. “That was totally, to me it’s disrespectful. Not to me, not even to our players, I think it’s disrespectful to the other team. It’s like, ‘I can just do this.’ That team punched us in the mouth. That team deserved to win the game. We just won.”
MSU led the Wildcats by 14 early in the first half before allowing a Northwestern run that gave the Wildcats the lead with 3:22 left. The first half ended with the score tied at 40.
“We’ve been an incredible team at rebounding and defending for the 20 years I’ve been here. This team wanted to be a little more of a pretty-boy team and it’s cost us a couple times,” Izzo said.
“We defended and rebounded and we ran, we score points at ease. We’re up nine, we’re up 14, we’re playing well. Then I thought we decided to go one on one.”
Valentine interpreted Izzo’s description as MSU being a “pretty-boy team” to mean they played soft.
“At the end of the game we didn’t get the rebound when we needed to or play defense when we needed to,” Valentine said. “That’s what he means by that.”
“We got the job done and we won, but we shouldn’t have been in this position anyway, so that’s why we’re so mad.”
The Spartans have failed to finish games adequately several times this season, and Izzo managed to find a silver lining on Sunday. Three times this season, the men’s basketball team came up short in overtime games. On Sunday, the Spartans managed a different outcome.
“We’re back in the Big Ten race and I’m going to look at it as we found a way to win,” Izzo said. “We haven’t done that a lot this year.”
