Michigan State Basketball: Eron Harris delivers emotional speech to team
Michigan State basketball’s senior guard Eron Harris delivered an emotional speech to the team following his season-ending injury.
Tom Izzo lost a son on Saturday evening. No, he didn’t have a loss in his actual family, but Eron Harris became one of his favorite players to coach over the past few years, even though his production on the court wasn’t always consistent.
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Harris went down with a devastating knee injury which forced him out of the Purdue game as he was taken away on a stretcher. It looked bad and the news reflected that as it was made public that he would require season-ending, and MSU career-ending, knee surgery.
It was clear the impact he’s had on the team over the past couple of years as players, such as Miles Bridges, teared up as he was removed from the court on the stretcher.
According to Jeremy Warnemuende of 247Sports, Harris gave an emotional speech on Sunday after the news broke and the team took it to heart. Bridges was one of those getting teared up.
"“It was a lot of emotions, a lot of people were crying,” said freshman Miles Bridges, one of the most visibly upset players when Harris was injured Saturday. “But Eron, he’s a strong individual. I look up to him as a player and as a person. I just feel bad that it had to happen to him.”"
Izzo spoke of the senior guard and the impact he had on the team on Monday, getting a bit emotional himself just speaking about the loss.
The Spartans’ Hall of Fame coach doesn’t often get emotional during his press conferences, but he did on Monday when talking about the speech Harris gave to the team, according to Warnemuende.
"“For him to say, ‘I went into that game thinking that, man, I only got six games left,’ and then he said, ‘When I was leaving on the stretcher, I realized my career is over,'” Izzo said before taking a pause to collect himself. “That was … that was hard.”"
He also had some serious compliments for the senior guard, even comparing him to Mateen Cleaves, in certain aspects.
"“I gained so much respect and appreciation for what he had done behind the scenes watching the other players and what he did for me in that meeting, just listening to how he explained it,” Izzo said. “There’s a couple things from that meeting that I wrote down and I’m going to make a choice on which one I want to use. But there will be something in that room that will have Eron Harris’ quote on it just like there’s some others, maybe a Mateen (Cleaves), or a Magic (Johnson) or Steve Smith."
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It’s clear Harris will be missed by the team and they’ll be playing with him in the back of their minds