Fresh off his 32nd career win over Michigan, Tom Izzo praised the Wolverines and former Michigan assistant coach Saddi Washington, who was in charge of scouting the Wolverines:
Tom Izzo came out on top in his first matchup against the Dusty May-led No. 12 Michigan Wolverines , with the No. 14 Michigan State Spartans winning in a packed Crisler Center, 75-62.
With the victory, Izzo improved to 32-14 all-time against Michigan, when you factor in five vacated Michigan wins towards the start of his lengthy head coaching tenure. Izzo’s group shut down the Wolverines defensively while also creating consistent offense of their own to earn an impressive road victory .
This victory was especially impressive, considering the Spartans just beat No. 13 Purdue on Tuesday, and beat Illinois on the road three days before that.
Only having two days to prepare for an offense centered around two 7-footers is no easy task, but the Spartans pulled it off. The Hall-of-Fame coach was quick to praise the Wolverines after the victory.
“We beat a damn good team today,” Izzo said in the opening statement of his postgame press conference. “They are hard to guard…well-coached team. They changed it up on us, went zone and man, but I thought our guys responded after a couple tough runs.”
Izzo later had praise for just about every single player in Michigan’s rotation.
“They do a good job, they got players,” Izzo said. “I like the two (7-footers) but I like Donaldson, I like Burnett, I like Jones, Tschetter is a guy that you can’t let score, and he scores a three. They got a lot of different weapons.”
Preparing to face Area 50-1 is no small task. While Vlad Goldin finished with 21 points, Danny Wolf was limited in that second half with just four points.
“What we didn’t want was to give Danny Wolf space,” Izzo said. “Because he’s very good with the ball, he’s very good at making decisions, he can shoot it and he got a lot of space in that first half.”
Praise for Saddi Washington
Former Michigan assistant coach Saddi Washington was in charge of scouting the Wolverines. He has a deep connection to Ann Arbor after spending eight years coaching there under two different head coaches. Washington helped guide the Wolverines to 176 wins, including a program-record 33 during the 2017-18 season.
It’s never easy to coach against your former school, but he got the best of the Wolverines in his return.
“That’s not an easy thing for him,” Izzo said on Washington returning to Ann Arbor. “Coach (John) Beilein stopped by and talked to us a little bit this morning in the hotel, and I even talked to Saddi about it a little bit. He spent 9-10 years here, but he didn’t go to school here.”
“I told him ‘Blood is a lot thicker than water,’ because his dad did go to school at our place” Izzo continued, referencing Saddi’s late father Stan, who scored more points than all but 32 players at MSU. “I said, ‘he’ll be looking down proud as hell at you today’ and I thought he did a good job with the scout, too.”
Saddi Washington in enemy territory pic.twitter.com/OlfhGIGysi
— Kellen Voss (@Kellen__Voss) February 22, 2025
A rematch in a few short weeks
This was the first Michigan-Michigan State game for Dusty May, who will have plenty more bites at the MSU apple in the future after signing a new multi-year contract .
Michigan closes out the regular at the Breslin Center, tipping off against the Spartans on CBS at noon on Sunday, March 9.
“There’s nothing better than beating your rival on your home floor, that’s just the way it is, and they’re going to get a chance to do that to us coming up,” Izzo said.