EAST LANSING – When the ball dropped in New York to end 2015 one year ago, Michigan State’s golden era of athletics already had come to a crashing halt.
Tom Izzo’s No. 1-ranked basketball team suffered its first loss of the season two days earlier in Iowa. Mark Dantonio watched from the sideline as the Spartans’ blowout loss to Alabama in the College Football Playoff wrapped up 20 minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve back in East Lansing.
And that was just the start of perhaps the most disappointing all-around year in MSU athletics history.