Tom Izzo: The Big Ten Deserves Better than Michigan State Being in Duke Bracket

Pretty soon after Michigan State won the Big Ten Tournament, Tom Izzo sat down with Jeff Goodman on Stadium’s NCAA Tournament show. Right off the bat he expressed “disappointment” that the Spartans drew Duke’s region. (They were indeed hosed.)

“I think our league deserved better than that for its champion and I think our league, which played 20 games — you know that’s more than any other league,” Izzo said. “It is what it is. I’m not going to complain about it.”

Izzo was also a little disheartened that MSU has to play this Thursday on a sharp turnaround from Sunday’s title game, saying he’d rather have played “the Celtics” if the game could’ve been Sunday.

Despite weird logic from the head of the selection committee that Michigan State “leapfrogged” Kentucky to get in a better spot by winning the Big Ten Tournament, there’s no one who can properly explain the absurdity of Sparty beating Michigan three times this season and ending up in Duke’s region while the Wolverines are paired with Gonzaga.

Regardless of what they say, the selection committee is just not sophisticated enough to take into account the Sunday games at all, let alone a game like the Big Ten Tournament championship that ends like 15 minutes before the bracket reveal begins.

Maybe the TV deals are set in stone because the bracket reveal needs a robust lead-in to make the formula work at its best, but there’s not really a big reward for winning that conference.