Michigan State clinched the regular season Big Ten Championship last night with a win over Iowa. Costa and Jeff Riger discuss whether they can make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
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00:00The other thing we're going to get into, beyond the hockey stuff, is Michigan State hoops.
00:04Oh yeah.
00:04Rieger's going to say nice things about the Spartans.
00:07It's Izzo's 7th.
00:08Yes.
00:09January, February.
00:10Izzo's 7th.
00:11Congratulations.
00:12They won the Big Ten yesterday, Cookies.
00:15Honestly, though.
00:16Can I call out Spartan fans?
00:18The amount of whining from Spartan fans yesterday when they were down to Iowa.
00:22Oh, we're going to lose this game.
00:24Oh, something's going to matter.
00:25I thought Spartan fans acted very soft.
00:27Hold on, you were supposed to say nice things about them.
00:29Congratulations.
00:30Congratulations.
00:31They won the Big Ten.
00:32And this looks like a deep problem for other teams.
00:37They won the best Big Ten ever because it's the deepest Big Ten ever.
00:42It's the first conference championship for Izzo in a half a decade.
00:46And they look poised to go on a serious run.
00:48This is almost like 2020 when the season was canceled.
00:51They had won seven in a row.
00:53And Cassius was amazing.
00:54And a lot of Spartan fans are like, listen, we're going to win it all this year.
00:58Season canceled.
00:59This team looks almost as scary.
01:02They're not the same in that they don't have a Cassius Winston.
01:04But they've kind of built them in the aggregate with like four different guards.
01:07And they can lean on who's ever hot that night.
01:09And Jace Richardson has been a revelation lately for them.
01:12But if it's not Jace, Akins, Holloman hits a big shot here or there, right?
01:17I mean, they've got depth on this team to where it's the combo of playing defense long enough
01:24for one of your guards to get loose a little bit.
01:26Look, a cold shooting night could end anybody's season.
01:29But MSU drags you into the deep water and they'll drown you.
01:35They'll you come up for air, but there's no you can't score on Michigan State late in
01:39the game.
01:39They suffocate.
01:40It was gone.
01:42That's that was the deep one.
01:44We're going to drag you in the deep end.
01:46Apologies, Spartan fans.
01:47I should have used a better analogy.
01:48My point is they suffocate you on defense and that allows them to go through some cold
01:52stretches offensively where they're not shooting well and still win.
01:55And all they've done is win these games like they have a shot at the one seed now.
02:00Right.
02:00One of the one seats, one seat.
02:01The other thing, too, is I think people looked at the gauntlet of the schedule, whether it
02:05be a Maryland, whether it be a Purdue, a Wisconsin, a Michigan, when Michigan was actually playing
02:10good basketball.
02:11And I think a lot of people are like, oh, my God, this is it for Sparty, because remember,
02:15they went on the West Coast, the USC, UCLA.
02:17They lost two of three, then three or four.
02:19They lost to Indiana on the day that Izzo was supposed to pass night.
02:23And I think a lot of people are like, this is it.
02:26Izzo stinks.
02:27He's old.
02:28Games passed him by.
02:29All they have done has been perfect in a gauntlet of a schedule.
02:33And they finally figured it out, man, when you can go 11 deep, when you don't have to
02:38give anybody more than 25 minutes, which, by the way, in today's college basketball,
02:42everybody's looking over their shoulder.
02:44If I'm not getting enough shots, enough minutes, enough looks.
02:48This team doesn't care.
02:50They'll roll, like you said, 10, 11 deep.
02:5222 minutes for one guy.
02:53So it's all right.
02:54They get a bunch of guards, too, that when one is off, the other isn't like compare it
02:59to Michigan.
03:00Michigan has no guards.
03:02I mean, you got Danny Wolf turning over the basketball, like literally giving it to the
03:06other team because they have nobody else to bring the ball up the court.
03:10Yeah, I forecast this team making a deeper run than they've made the last.
03:13What's your stat?
03:13Izzo's got six tourney wins the last five years.
03:16I mean, they've made the second weekend, I think, once.
03:19And then they lost to Kansas State that one year.
03:21And that's the only thing is, like, with the praise, they have to do it in the tournament.
03:25But it feels like a team built to do that.
03:27Yeah, it feels like a team that will not fall short.
03:30And listen, I don't know what they'll do in the Big Ten tournament, but this team, it's
03:35going to be a problem in the NCAA tournament.
03:37And it gives me anxiety because I don't want to see Izzo get a second.
03:42It's really the only ammunition you have as a Michigan fan trying to troll all these
03:45years is, oh, 2000 was so long ago.
03:47We only won one.
03:49Right.
03:50John Beeline went to more Elite Eights than Tom Izzo.
03:53Right.