Shortly after beating a top-five team in East Lansing in an overtime thriller, Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo had to shift his focus to Wisconsin.
Beating Illinois was huge and it required some celebration, but Tuesday night proved that the Spartans can’t be celebrating for too long because Wisconsin is going to be a battle. The Badgers just went into Champaign and upset the Illini, securing a second top-10 win on the road over the past month.
A big reason for Wisconsin’s recent success (8-2 over the past 10 games) has been star guard John Blackwell from Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
The junior Wisconsin guard has been one of the best in the conference. He’s part of one of the best backcourts in the country, averaging 18.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game while shooting 41 percent from the floor and 37 percent from three. He just makes winning plays, and Izzo is still kicking himself for not recruiting the Brother Rice alum a little harder.
Tom Izzo: “I’d have to fire myself (for not landing John Blackwell)”
During his pre-Wisconsin presser, Izzo talked about how not landing Blackwell was one of his biggest recruiting regrets and that he wishes he could fire his assistants, but he’d have to let himself go, too.
Izzo gushes over Wisconsin star and former Brother Rice standout G John Blackwell and says he feels that might be one of his big recruiting regrets because he loves who the kid is: "I'd like to fire my assistants, but I'd have to fire myself as well."
— Chris Solari (@chrissolari) February 11, 2026
Blackwell feels like the type of player that would excel under Izzo, and imagining him next to this year’s version of Jeremy Fears Jr. just isn’t fair. A Fears-Blackwell backcourt would be the best in the Big Ten and arguably the nation’s best, and that 2-guard spot would be a non-issue.
Not landing Blackwell isn’t going to go down as one of Izzo’s biggest recruiting misses, because there are a lot of better examples, like Jabari Parker or Jahlil Okafor, but it’s one of those sneaky one that could’ve been the difference between a top-10 team with some shooting woes to a top-three team with the best backcourt in the country.
Izzo said that by the time he began to focus in on him, Blackwell already had his mind made up and Wisconsin was going to be his home for the next 3-4 years.
I guess we all get to imagine what Blackwell would look like in a Michigan State jersey as the Spartans continue to chase a second straight Big Ten title. Wonderful.