Sitting at No. 7 in the country after a 26-5 regular season with yet another Big Ten title and projected 2-seed in the NCAA Tournament, Tom Izzo can rest east knowing he did an excellent job this year.
Michigan State basketball fans had grown tired of the same old coaching style with no adjustments over the past few seasons that led to one of the worst stretches in Izzo's career. But after vowing to get back to deep March runs "or die trying" last year after the North Carolina loss in the NCAA Tournament, all he's done is take a preseason unranked team to No. 7 in the polls and No. 1 in the Big Ten (by three games, mind you).
Izzo went to the portal and picked up Frankie Fidler and Szymon Zapala which didn't seem like enough after losing Tyson Walker and Malik Hall to the NBA draft process and AJ Hoggard and Mady Sissoko to the transfer portal. Four starters gone from a team that fell drastically short of expectations.
And yet, Izzo was able to lead this team of just three seniors (Jaden Akins and the two transfers) and mostly younger guys to a 26-5 season with zero losses throughout the months of December and January.
So that begs the question: has this been Izzo's best coaching job yet?
It's a valid question and my answer is: it has to be top-three, at least. Looking at Izzo's career, he's had numerous examples of exceeding preseason expectations and he's led some interesting teams to a Final Four, but just based on the regular season given preseason expectations, this is a top-three Izzo job ever.
Just two times ever has Izzo taken a preseason unranked team and led them to a spot in the final AP Top 25 (after the tournament). This year's team will be the third. The other two were 1997-98 and 2011-12. Both of those teams, unfortunately, lost in the Sweet 16.
The 1997-98 job may have been his best because he led a team that hadn't made the NCAA Tournament in two years to a Sweet 16 and had them ranked as high as No. 10 in the AP Top 25 after starting the season unranked. I can't put the 2011-12 team ahead of this year's team because it had two preseason top-five squads in the two previous seasons and the Spartans were coming off two Final Four appearances in the three seasons leading up to that.
This year's team was fresh off a disappointing season in which it began the year ranked No. 4 before losing to James Madison in the season opener. It then limped into the NCAA Tournament with a 19-14 record before getting bounced in the second round. This was the fourth straight disappointing season with at least 13 losses.
Hope was dwindling heading into this year, especially after losing its top two scorers and four starters.
And yet Izzo found a way to get back to what made him elite: defending, rebounding, running. His team has been elite at all of those and they're tough as nails. This is your typical Izzo team.
Not only did Izzo win at least 25 games for the first time since 2018-19, but he broke Bob Knight's record for all-time Big Ten wins, won Big Ten Coach of the Year, and led Michigan State to seven Quad 1 wins in a row to end the regular season. Oh, and he did all of this with just one (!!) player on the three All-Big Ten teams.
Outside of his first NCAA Tournament season back in 1997-98, I think this has to be Izzo's best coaching job to date, looking at all of the factors.