{"id":243989,"date":"2025-10-22T16:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T16:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/243989\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T16:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T16:58:07","slug":"tom-izzo-slams-ridiculous-decision-to-give-london-johnson-ncaa-eligibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/243989\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Izzo slams ‘ridiculous’ decision to give London Johnson NCAA eligibility"},"content":{"rendered":"

An NBA G League player made a college commitment this week and is set to become eligible to play in the 2026-27 NCAA season.<\/p>\n

If that sounds absurd to you, you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n

Longtime Michigan State hoops coach Tom Izzo railed against the decision to allow London Johnson, a 21-year-old who spent the last three seasons in the G League, to be eligible to commit to Louisville this week.<\/p>\n

\"LondonLondon Johnson (1), a former NBA G League player, has committed to play collegiately at Louisville. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m gonna get killed because someone\u2019s gonna say, \u2018Well, if they go pro and it doesn\u2019t work out, shouldn\u2019t they be able to come back?\u2019 Well, what about the freshman you recruited there? That\u2019s somebody\u2019s son,\u201d Izzo told reporters<\/a> on Tuesday. \u201cAnd he thinks he\u2019s got himself a good place and then all of a sudden, shazam, they pull out of their hat and bring a 21-or-22-year-old in. To me, it\u2019s ridiculous. To me, it\u2019s embarrassing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love my job, I don\u2019t respect my profession. I don\u2019t respect whoever\u2019s doing that, whoever made those decisions because they\u2019re afraid a lawyer\u2019s gonna sue them. Sooner or later, you\u2019ve gotta fight the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MichiganMichigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo speaks to reporters on Oct. 21, 2025. WILX 10<\/p>\n

Izzo, 70, joked he was going to call former Michigan State greats like Magic Johnson to see if they wanted to return to the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019s me, maybe I\u2019m the dummy, but I\u2019ll never agree to that stuff,\u201d Izzo said. \u201cI think we\u2019re really hurting the seniors in high school, giving them a chance. What\u2019s the age limit now? Is it 30? If you have three beards and two mustaches, are you illegal? You\u2019re not allowed to play? What\u2019s it gonna be? It hit a sore spot for me because the transfer portal is enough. We have no rules. And now we\u2019ve just taken no rules and just added some more no rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

The floodgates for Johnson\u2019s eligibility opened last month when Thierry Darlan, another former G Leaguer who is 21 years old, was able to commit to Santa Clara.<\/p>\n

Darlan\u2019s agent, Todd Ramasar, told ESPN<\/a> at the time that the NCAA granted Darlan two years of eligibility based on his age and years removed from high school; Darlan graduated from the NBA Academy Africa program.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In recent years, the NCAA has been allowing young international players with pro experience to play collegiately, which paved the way for the recent rulings on the pair of G Leaguers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NCAA\u2019s gotta regroup. That\u2019s my opinion,\u201d Izzo said. \u201cI\u2019m not mad at the players. I\u2019m mad at the adults in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An NBA G League player made a college commitment this week and is set to become eligible to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,4044,8938,7560,355,108740,398,400,401,99,16509],"class_list":["post-243989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-louisville-cardinals","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-nba","tag-nba-g-league","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-sports","tag-tom-izzo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}