Mick Cronin did something vs. Michigan State that not even Tom Izzo had seen before

Mick Cronin praised Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo last week leading up to his trip to Michigan to face the Wolverines and then the Spartans. He called Izzo one of the best ambassadors of college basketball and basically just talked about how great of a coach and person he is.

Cronin is a controversial figure in college basketball who is animated on the sidelines during games and can sometimes lash out at reporters after games. He did both on Tuesday night in East Lansing.

The in-game animation led to one of the most surprising moves that anyone has ever seen from a head coach. Heck, Izzo even said that he’s never seen a coach who what Cronin did near the end of Tuesday’s night’s blowout loss to the Spartans.

Carson Cooper had a clear breakaway opportunity and went up for a dunk only to be fouled hard by former Michigan State student Steven Jamerson II.

Cooper then got in the UCLA big man’s face and the two exchanged some words before being separated by teammates. Everything thankfully was settled down within seconds, but Cronin didn’t like what he saw from his 6-foot-10 backup center. He met Jamerson on the sidelines before ejecting him from the game himself.

The foul was obviously a little harder than it needed to be, but Jamerson didn’t look like he was trying to hurt Cooper but rather make sure he didn’t get a wide-open dunk.

With the score being 77-50 at the time of this play, it all felt a little unnecessary.

Izzo admitted that he had never seen anything like what Cronin did, but he also wasn’t totally surprised because “that sounds like Mick”.

There were no hard feelings between the two friends, and seeing Cronin take the hard foul seriously and eject his own player even had Izzo surprised.

You have to feel slightly bad for Steven Jamerson

By all accounts, Jamerson is a nice kid and one of the better stories in college basketball, going from wannabe walk-on at Michigan State to Division I backup center. He battled his way onto UCLA’s roster years after he wasn’t selected to walk on at Michigan State.

Returning back to East Lansing as an opponent was probably one of the coolest moments for Jamerson in his young career, but it was marred by an ejection via his own head coach.

Jamerson was hoping to lead UCLA to an upset win over his old school, but he instead was shown the locker room about five minutes too early because of a hard foul.

You have to feel for the kid as he was embarrassed on national television.