It's been a rough 24 hours to be a Michigan State basketball fan. Tom Izzo reportedly missed out on a visit from Alabama transfer Aiden Sherrell after making a strong push for him while he was in Bloomington checking out Indiana but the bad news didn't stop there.
A backup plan to Sherrell committed to those same Indiana Hoosiers just hours after it was reported that Michigan State wouldn't be getting a visit from the Alabama transfer.
That's right, another top transfer target is officially off the board for Michigan State.
On Tuesday evening, Samet Yigitoglu of SMU committed to Indiana after being rumored as a strong South Carolina lean prior. Indiana wasn't even really mentioned in terms of teams interested in him, and that crushed the reports that Izzo was going to reach back out to the SMU center.
While the move hurts, Yigitoglu wasn't really a name that the Spartans were re-invested in heavily after early interest until things went awry with Sherrell. He may have felt that he wasn't made a priority by the Spartans and decided to go to the program that's ripping Sherrell from Izzo's grasp. Indiana is taking whatever it wants from Michigan State right now, and that doesn't sit right with me.
That's now two transfer portal targets off the board with Sherrell likely headed to Indiana and Yigitoglu already there waiting for him.
Tom Izzo has to play the game if he wants to win
Posting a 57-15 record over the past two years with a Big Ten title, an Elite Eight, and a Sweet 16 should be enough to make any fanbase happy, but that's not good enough in East Lansing.
Expectations are titles every year or at least a legitimate run at the Final Four. Sure, an Elite Eight was nice, but fans saw the talent gap between the Spartans and Auburn and knew that Izzo needed to spend some money if he was going to beat the big dogs.
Michigan State is a big dog in the college basketball world, which makes the entire spending issue in the transfer portal so befuddling. Izzo and the Spartans have the money, but for whatever reason, there's just a disconnect between the donors and what the Hall of Fame head coach sees for his team and his locker room. He doesn't want to pay millions for a guy in the portal and then ruffle the feathers of some players he recruited who aren't making as much.
Izzo has to understand (which I know he does at this point) that the players see this as a business, too. They'll understand if Izzo pays millions for an elite center if it can bring the team a national title.
Although Izzo is old school and likes to build his rosters and develop them in his own way, he has to play the game and pay big money to land the missing piece on an otherwise national title-caliber roster.
If not, he's going to keep falling further behind.
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