Reactions to Izzo from around the web

Tom Izzo's decision to stay at Michigan State is one that certainly will make every college basketball fan happy, particularly those up in East Lansing. As we always do, here is some reaction to Izzo from around the web.

Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports: This was Izzo’s conundrum. He's based so much of his life on building a basketball family at State that he couldn't rectify his public pursuit of another job. Tom Izzo knows what he wants. He also knows what he wants to be. NBA coach or loyal leader? The two things don’t mesh. They never will. Most people would’ve gone for the gold, gone after the challenge, ignored the local radio show or newspaper column. Not Izzo. Not this time. Not last time. Not anytime. It’s what makes him great. It’s what makes him miserable. So he's going to be a lifer. He’s going to be known as the devoted Spartan, a larger-than life figure in the annals of college basketball. If you’ve got to give up on your dream, that's a damn proud alternative.


Mike DeCourcy, Sporting News: Izzo called it "an agonizing week" as he debated between the greater of two goods: making well over $3 million a year to coach Sporting News' preseason No. 1 college team at Michigan State or a reported $6 million to take charge of the Cavs and perhaps become the suit whose strategy gets LeBron James that elusive NBA championship. That the decision tore at him was all the proof anyone, including Izzo, needed to confirm Michigan State was the proper choice. There would have been no torment if coaching in the NBA was precisely what Izzo wanted to do.


Jeff Goodman, FOXSports.com: Tom Izzo was far too smart to screw this up. I started to question whether the Michigan State head man was, in fact, as savvy as I had given him credit for over the years as he waited and debated for nearly two weeks. For a while there, even some of Izzo’s closest friends believed he was ready to finally bolt for the NBA. But then the 55-year-old practically Michigan State lifer realized there was no way he could roll the dice and take the Cleveland Cavs gig. Not when he couldn’t even get The King on the phone.


Eamonn Brennan, ESPN.com: Want to know how popular Izzo is among Michigan State fans? Rather than reacting with distaste for Izzo's drawn-out job chase, Spartans fans organized a rally at the Breslin Center -- which included a teary appearance from MSU center Derrick Nix -- designed to keep the coach in town. Many fan bases with the Spartans' history of success would have told their coach to buzz off if he didn't like his job. But MSU fans owe so much of that success to Izzo that he could have taken months on his decision without losing support or tarnishing his legacy. Now that's popularity.


Rush the Court: That’s why it’s good for college basketball that this man sticks in East Lansing. Anyone who remembers how he struggled to keep his composure when asked in a post-game interview about the welfare of Kalin Lucas after Lucas tore his Achilles’ tendon knows how much he cares about his players off the court as much as on it (that’s just one example). His players love him, he’s polite, affable, even self-effacing, as evidenced by the fact that he apologized for taking so long to come to a decision about this job offer. Clevelanders certainly can’t be too mad at him, since he included in his statements an entreaty that LeBron hang around as a Cavalier.


Jeff Eisenberg, The Dagger: The lingering question that will probably will never be answered is whether Izzo's grind-it-out style and rah-rah motivational techniques could have worked at the professional level. It will probably always tug at Izzo a little bit that he will never get to attempt that challenge, but hopefully he'll be able to look back one day secure he made the right decision. Other college coaches have failed in the NBA because they needed to control every aspect an organization, but Izzo is too smart and too ego-free to fall victim to that. Like every other coach, however, he needs talent to succeed, so it would have been a huge risk to have accepted the Cavs' offer not knowing whether LeBron James was coming back or not.


Alex Wolff, SI.com: Over the past dozen years Izzo has quietly become an Institutional. His Spartans have strung together 13 straight NCAA appearances, six of them culminating in Final Fours and one in a national title. His program has never found itself on probation. He has forged a signature style, basketball in pads, that befits the conference in which his team plays and his lifelong friendship with Steve Mariucci. The U.S. Basketball Writers Association has honored him with its Good Guy Award for his geniality and accessibility. His anguished expressions of disappointment are worthy of Jud Heathcote, the man he apprenticed under, then replaced, and has now surpassed on the all-time victory list. And the contrasting cutaway shots of his serene wife, Lupe, are March Madness staples.


Andy Katz, ESPN.com: Walking around Izzo's Sparty shrine in the basement of his East Lansing home in October, you could see the reverence he has for the program, for the past, for the community. So often it's easy for coaches with the pro-like salaries to be above everyone, to be detached and distant. But that's not Izzo. He has on his walls, those memories from his time as a head coach, photos from the 1979 title team, and a reverence for Michigan State that is hard to match.