The last time Michigan State basketball earned a 2-seed in the NCAA Tournament, Tom Izzo and the Spartans made the Final Four after beating Duke thanks to a massive 3-pointer by Kenny Goins.
The time before that? A lot of us still don't like talking about it.
That's right, the second-to-last time Michigan State was a 2-seed in the NCAA Tournament, the Spartans were shocked by Middle Tennessee in the first round in the upset of the year. Michigan State fans were devastated as the last game for Bryn Forbes, Denzel Valentine, Deyonta Davis, and Matt Costello was as ugly as it could get.
Was Michigan State under-seeded as the Big Ten champs and No. 2 team in the final AP Top 25 before the tournament? Yeah, probably, but I'm not going to get into all of that. The Spartans got embarrassed on a national stage and were a laughingstock of the sport for a year.
So when Michigan State saw that "2" next to its name on Selection Sunday, the Middle Tennessee game flashed in everyone's minds.
Even Izzo's, apparently.
Izzo on the 2016 loss to MTSU: "I'm a white-elephant-in-the-room guy. Whenever there's a white elephant in the room, I talk about it. Some people hide, some people put their head in the sand like an ostrich."
— Spartans Illustrated (@SpartansRivals) March 18, 2025
"Do I bring up the 2-15 game? Hell yes, first night."
According to Spartans Illustrated, Izzo brought up the Middle Tennessee game "first night". He said that he likes to address the elephant in the room and he brought up that 2-15 game on the first night with his team, I'm assuming. Surely they know about it and remembered it as kids, but that has to be something he addresses so they know not to ever flirt with that same feeling.
Hopefully Izzo's horror story about Middle Tennessee will scare his team into not even allowing Bryant to make things interesting on Friday night.