Losing to an underwhelming Indiana team at home feels like nature is healing. Michigan State basketball has had some elite teams do that over the years, including one that made a Final Four in 2018-19, led by Cassius Winston.
Tuesday night's loss to Indiana wasn't even shocking to Michigan State fans who have seen the February lull every single season. This is almost a right of passage.
While the loss happened and there's nothing we can do about it now, thinking about how avoidable it truly was made it sting a little more. Failing to crack the zone has been one of Tom Izzo's biggest struggles throughout his coaching career and that came back to bite him again on a night that was supposed to be all about him breaking Bob Knight's record.
Izzo has been criticized heavily since, but he spoke out against the fans saying that all teams are just going to zone the heck out of Michigan State moving forward.
His message? "Bring it."
Since Tuesday’s loss vs. Indiana, the narrative around college basketball has been: “If you’re playing Michigan State the rest of the season, just play zone defense.”
— Michigan State Content (@msucontent) February 14, 2025
Here’s Tom Izzo’s *multiple* responses to teams playing zone the rest of the year👀
🎥 @TheSpartanMag pic.twitter.com/RJqkHIV9k9
I love the confidence here and it feels like this loss really got to him because it was so avoidable and he had to take the brunt of the criticism, but if you think his team didn't practice against a zone all week following the Indiana debacle, you're crazy.
There's a chance Michigan State could face zone again moving forward and now that the Spartans know they can't just shoot their way out of it, they're going to have to game-plan better.
It sounds like Izzo has already gotten into that.
The Hall of Famer even went as far as saying he hopes Illinois does it for 40 minutes on Saturday. It sounds like he's worked on some zone-breaking concepts. That would be a nice development moving forward.