The college basketball season is not even close to over, yet the transfer portal officially opened up on Monday.

“I think it’s ridiculous that the NCAA or any other entity put these two things together,” Izzo said on Tuesday. “People like (the media) have to ask these questions, and I value that you have to ask them, and I do get upset when people are talking to our kids about them (leaving)."

Michigan State is one of 16 teams still competing for a national championship. Spartan head coach Tom Izzo — already holding a well-documented history of distaste for the transfer portal — would prefer to see a champion get crowned before players can look for new schools.

“I saw what happened at one school, teams get the chance to play in the Sweet 16 and people are entering the transfer portal," said Izzo. "Kids gotta do what they gotta do, and they’re really not doing what they’ve got to do, they’re doing what their parents or their agents are telling them to do, because they still got to go to practice, go in the same locker room unless they leave the team, and I think that’s insane. I think it’s disgusting, but that’s my own personal opinion.”

Izzo added that he does not plan to devote any time to trying to add any players from the portal while his team is still playing for a few different reasons.

“I learned something from my boss, Jud Heathcote, and there’s a happy medium on this,” Izzo said. “And I know this isn’t normal, but nothing’s normal, that’s why I coined it, ‘let’s be different.’ (Jud) used to always say to me when I was working my tail off in recruiting, because he didn’t do as much, and he’d say, ‘The problem with you young guys is you’re always trying to replace the guys you’ve got instead of making the guys you’ve got better. Is that fair to the guys you’ve got that you’re out spending time on somebody else and you’re not taking care of them?’"

To Izzo, the happy medium is the idea that you’ve always got to recruit good players and you’ve always got to have players that you recruit.

“I’m going to tell you something that I learned: if you’re loyal to your players and they want to get better, then your obligation is to the people that you brought here," said Izzo. "Now, if they don’t want to get better or they aren’t doing their job, nowadays, there won’t be as many people that are hanging on to people and letting them (develop), there’ll be more run-offs. Could happen here, could happen somewhere else, but the last thing I want to do is cheat my players."

Izzo said that he and his coaching staff are working 24/7 on three teams right now to try to win the weekend.

"If somebody’s better than me that can work 24/7 plus being interested in getting somebody that’s better than somebody they got, and that’s the way it’s going in our thing, I’m just not one of those guys," he said. "If that’s what our fan base wants, what our media wants, then it’s not me. But I’m disgusted that we even have to deal with this at this time.”

There’s also another very simple reason Izzo’s mind isn’t on the 2025-26 season at all: the 2024-25 team is really, really good.

“I’m honed in on Ole Miss,” he said. “I might even call Mr. (Archie or Eli) Manning and figure out something that I don’t know about that place, and that’s all I want. (Rebels head coach) Chris Beard, what he’s done has been incredible, but what my team has done has been incredible and I’m not ready to move on."

Izzo then gave a post-mortem shout out to his mentor, former MSU head coach Jud Heathcote.

“So Jud, I followed what you said," said Izzo. "I’m going to worry today about the guys I’ve got in this program that have done an incredible job this year and that’s it. If that costs me later, so be it, but Tom Izzo isn’t cheating the people that he has that have been loyal to him (instead of) this chaos that is going on out there.”

There’s also the fact of the matter that Izzo doesn’t know yet what his roster outlook is going to be.

He knows he is going to lose seniors Jaden Akins, Szymon Zapala and Frankie Fidler and will bring in high school prospects Cam Ward and Jordan Scott. That should leave one spot, but Jase Richardson has an NBA decision to make and Izzo doesn’t know yet who might exit via the portal themselves.

“Why in the hell would I do something else that might benefit me a year from now?” Izzo asked rhetorically. “And really, it’s not going to benefit me now, because I don’t know what I have. I don’t know how much (NIL) money I have, I don’t know which players are leaving or staying. I don’t have any idea, so why would I do that? Waste of time.”

Izzo didn't let up.

“By the way, there’s not a lot of recruiting done in the transfer portal,” Izzo said. “It’s offering (money). There’s not recruiting, it’s paying. All these people are doing it — we don’t even know what we can do yet.”

As for the actual important things facing second-seeded Michigan State, the Sweet 16 and No. 6 Ole Miss, Izzo gave plenty of respect to Beard, who was at Texas Tech in 2019 when the Red Raiders bested the Spartans in the Final Four.

“Even though we got back late, we got right into Ole Miss,” Izzo said. “I know (Beard) from the Texas Tech days. They’re very well-coached, tough. Coach Beard, his teams are tougher than nails, and I felt like we weren’t ready for that up in Minnesota (in 2019), and that’s surprising, because I think we’re usually a tough team.”