{"id":550728,"date":"2026-03-28T16:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/550728\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T16:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:27:08","slug":"tom-izzo-takes-retirement-stance-after-michigan-states-tough-march-madness-ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/550728\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Izzo takes retirement stance after Michigan State’s tough March Madness ending"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Izzo has no plans to slow down.<\/p>\n

Not when that hunger for an elusive second national title still fuels him.<\/p>\n

The legendary 71-year-old Michigan State coach defiantly said he\u2019s not considering retirement and vowed to \u201cget back there\u201d after a tough 67-63 loss to UConn<\/a> in the Sweet 16 on Friday.<\/p>\n

Tom Izzo and Michigan State fell in the Sweet 16. AP<\/p>\n

Izzo and the Spartans are in their longest Final Four drought in his 31 seasons, having last played in the season\u2019s final weekend during the 2018-19 campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, I\u2019m feeling good. We all talk about retirement. Why? What the hell am I going to do?\u201d Izzo said after the end of a 27-8 campaign. \u201cThe minute I don\u2019t feel good, the minute I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m giving my AD or president or school every ounce of energy I have every day or that energy drops, you don\u2019t have to worry about it. I don\u2019t steal money. I won\u2019t steal anybody\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s sure as hell not going to be now. I\u2019ve got some things to accomplish. I\u2019m going to make damn sure that \u2014 I said a couple years ago that I\u2019ll find a way to get back there. We\u2019ve knocked on the door twice. We haven\u2019t gotten back. We\u2019ll get back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michigan State is perennially one of the sport\u2019s top teams, but it has not been the Final Four constant it was earlier in Izzo\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n

The Spartans have only made the Elite Eight once in their last six postseason appearances despite having strong rosters most seasons.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s third-seeded team had the potential to win a title, but they fell behind, 25-6, to UConn on Friday and rallied to take the lead before the second-seeded Huskies made more plays down the stretch.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Fears Jr. (right) returning would help MSU compete for a title next season. Getty Images<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fair to wonder just how much longer Izzo would want to keep pushing for a championship now that he\u2019s in his 70s and in this Name, Image and Likeness era that can exhaust coaches.<\/p>\n

Izzo, though, made it clear that he wants to add a third championship to the trophy case in East Lansing when asked what he sees himself doing in five years.<\/p>\n

The longtime coach won his lone title in 2000.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrying to win a National Championship, plain and simple. That\u2019s it. Those things usually start after your last loss. Nowadays, it\u2019s a little more screwed up, but not at Michigan State,\u201d Izzo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter our last loss, we all talked about what we\u2019ve got to do next year and how we\u2019ve got to learn from this. It is \u2014 I\u2019ve got to give UConn a lot of credit, but man, we didn\u2019t look like ourselves early. You\u2019re right. That\u2019s got to fall on the coach. I\u2019ve got to get them ready to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Izzo said there are some \u201cbright things\u201d in his program\u2019s future, with the nation\u2019s No. 2 recruiting class featuring four top-100 prospects on the way, per 247 Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He said he has seven to eight players set to return, with star guard Jeremy Fears Jr. and forward Coen Carrr both having eligibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to the portal right away. [Saturday], I\u2019m going to the portal. The only difference is the portal at Michigan State is different than the portal at most places.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going right to my frickin\u2019 locker room, and I\u2019m going to talk to each and every player right there. I\u2019m going to make some decisions about what we\u2019re going to do that I feel very comfortable with. Then, I\u2019m going to make sure that every one of them call our four freshmen that are going to be coming in next year and set the table on what\u2019s going to be expected and how we can, not do better than this year in a lot of ways, but how we can learn from maybe the mistakes we made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom Izzo said he\u2019s not going anywhere. Getty Images<\/p>\n

If Izzo retains his top players, the Spartans will be ranked highly in the preseason poll and perhaps give him a strong chance at winning his second championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the luckiest guy in the world. I\u2019m just not lucky enough to be playing on Sunday,\u201d Izzo said. \u201cI\u2019ll get to play on another Sunday. Hang around.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Izzo has no plans to slow down. Not when that hunger for an elusive second national title…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[4044,102534,229929,7560,99,16509,31478],"class_list":["post-550728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-college-basketball","tag-march-madness","tag-march-madness-2026","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-sports","tag-tom-izzo","tag-uconn-huskies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550728","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=550728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}