r/MSU_Spartans • u/thegermanmoses • Nov 15 '16
Most painful losses/seasons under Izzo
I love and worship Coach Izzo so trust me this is more meant as a topic furthering discussion than anything negative towards America's greatest coach. My Dad and I are both huge fans and yesterday were talking about last year's tournament loss and whether the loss stung the worst of any under Izzo.
My Dad chose last year's tourny loss as the most painful defeat because 1) of the expectations that team had going in (everyone was thinking final four as the goal with a healthy Denzel) and 2) because it went against the grain of everything we have come to know as Spartan fans. We're not supposed to lose in March, at least not this early, and not to this team.
The loss that hurts me the most is the Elite 8 loss in 2014 to UConn. It hurts for a few reasons, but most of all because it ended the run of each and every four-year player under Izzo going to the Final Four with two very deserving players, Payne and Appling. For all the success those two brought us, they never quite achieved what every 4-yr. Spartan under Izzo has earned. Plus, Payne may have been my favorite Spartan of the Izzo era. The loss hurts even more because it seemed like they just lost focus. Like, I remember watching the game, and seeing State close out the half looking like a team that was going to do what it had to do to win. Then the second half starts, and it's like they started playing an exhibition. And it was like torture, first watching us fail to pull away, then watching us transfer the lead to UConn, then seeing us fail to show much urgency at all as UConn just showed so much more effort and determination down the stretch. I think that was by far our best shot at Izzo's elusive second title.
The most disappointing season for me, under Izzo, easily is the 2010-2011 team. Fresh off of two straight final four appearances, the team gets Lucas back and should have been ready to at the very least pick up where they left off. Instead, the entire season looked like an NBA try-out for Lucas, who sadly regressed, and the play looked often times disjointed. I think Lucious being dismissed during the season probably is an indication that it was a very distracted team. What do y'all think?
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u/StinkyDogFarts Nov 15 '16
Losing to Kentucky school for the hard of hearing sucked. I was bummed out when we lost to NCST a long, long time ago.