Hey, Tom Izzo: Ease Up on the Trash Talk About the Wolverines!!!

January 22, 2012
By: Dave Rogers

Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo makes very few mistakes.

But in our opinion saying he "doesn't like" the University of Michigan is one of them. A really big one, too.

The Wolverine basketball team made him eat his ill-advised words with a one point victory at Ann Arbor a few days later.

Tom, a word of advice from an old referee and onetime junior high coach: It never helps to give the other coach something to use to fire up his team.

That's the most basic strategy in the usually friendly back and forth that coaches, players and fans engage in before contests, in fact usually all year long.

How many times have we seen headlines from newspaper articles pasted up on lockerroom bulletin boards? Elmer Engel and Zit Tessmer were noted for that. "Flint Northern Expected to Whomp Bay City Central on Friday Night," the Flint Journal might have written. Sure as heck, Elmer and Zit would post the clipping and Bay City would come roaring into Atwood Stadium, with fire in their eyes, and knock the daylights out of Northern. That was just the way it was. The extra adrenaline came out of the ink on the newspaper.

Now, think back to what Tom Izzo could have said when asked about the University of Michigan. "Well, we are fierce rivals on the court but we respect the Wolverines and their coach and players and we will do our best to defeat them in the game."

Innocuous? Yep! Safe? Yep! Wise? Yepper!!!

Not "we just don't like them," which probably is not true anyway. Of course MSU likes Michigan in a collegial sort of way, gridiron and cage battles aside. Both are among the nation's top public universities, both in athletics to provide opportunities for athletes to compete and students to cheer; both members of the Big 10 (whoops, I almost forgot, U-M tried to keep MSU out of the Big 10, didn't they?)

But those are the political things we need to forget, let bygones be bygones, all shake hands after the game no matter how it came out. Right, Tom?

Besides, don't be dumb enough to give the rival coach any more ammunition than he already has to put fire in the bellies of his players.

Please keep that in mind, Mr. Izzo; we don't need any more one point losses after 15 game winning streaks, do we?

Actually, we love the Wolverines; love to beat them when we can; when we can't we go back to practice even harder.

And, we sometimes even cheer for them, especially when they're playing Indiana or Ohio State.

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