Tom Izzo has a reputation as one of the “good guys” amongst college basketball’s elite coaches. While it’s surprisingly easy to argue that reputation is unearned (quickly Google what came out about his program as Michigan State found itself under the microscope after the Larry Nassar scandal, or how he reacted to the now infamous Michigan-Michigan State “tunnel incident” that resulted in more than a half-dozen criminal charges against Spartan football players), it now seems that Izzo is intent on torpedoing that goodwill by embracing his “grumpy old man” era.
There were signs of it last spring, when Izzo made this eyebrow raising remark about NIL: “What people don’t realize, and I hope people realize, is that this isn’t as good for the players as everybody thinks.