Every year, when the calendar turns to February, it's almost like the skill gets sucked out of Michigan State basketball players and coaches for a week.
Tom Izzo usually deals with an early Febraury lull and it usually causes fans to hit the panic button.
After winning 13 straight games and going into February with a two-game lead atop the Big Ten standings, no one was expecting the normal lull, but we should've known better. The Spartans dropped 3-of-4 games, including a head-scratcher at home to Indiana which probably should never have happened in a million years.
Everyone jumped off the bandwagon after losing to USC, UCLA, and Indiana in a four-game stretch and I even saw some "we aren't as good as we thought" tweets on X.
The overreactions were legendary.
But now that Michigan State is back on track after going through this yearly February drought, we need to look back and realize that this is par for the course, especially for contenders under Izzo.
The last Michigan State team to make a Final Four also had one of these spells, and even lost to Indiana at home in early February. The Spartans had a rough stretch the year after (right before COVID hit) and still won a third straight Big Ten title and entered March as one of the hottest teams in the country before the NCAA Tournament was canceled.
We have to stop doubting Izzo when these stretches happen. I get that social media magnifies every overreaction but it's time we just accept that this is likely every February early on.
Sure, there may be seasons where this doesn't happen, but this is not new for Michigan State. It's happened for decades now with some of the best Michigan State teams under Izzo.
As we've seen, Izzo bounces back in a big way after the drought. Wins at Illinois and Michigan and over Purdue have proven that.