There is a harsh truth about the NCAA Tournament and the post season of virtually all organized sports. Of the 68 teams that celebrated their presence in the bracket on Selection Sunday, 67 of those team are going to lose before the tournament reaches its end.

That mean that there will be 67 frustrated fan bases, 67 disappointed coaching staffs, and 67 tear-filled locker rooms heading home.

”Somebody's gonna go home sad,” said Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo on Sunday night. “Today, it's the Spartans. Next Saturday (at the Final Four) it'll be two more teams. Next Monday (championship game), it will be one more team.”

The 2024-25 Spartan season began with lower than normal expectations in East Lansing. Michigan State was unranked in November, and was picked to finish fifth in the Big Ten.

In the first month of the season, the Spartans took a loss to Memphis in Maui and a loss to Kansas, ironically in the the same building in Atlanta where the season ultimately came to an end.

On Sunday night, Izzo answered a question posed to him, acknowledging that after the loss to Kansas in November, that it didn't seem plausible at the time that his team would blossom into Big Ten Champions, not lose a game for two full months, and end up being one of the final eight teams left standing in late March.

At the time, Izzo was more worried about just winning the next game. He was honestly concerned that the NCAA Tournament streak might be in jeopardy.

“I didn't feel very good about where we were,” he said.

But “Mr. March” - as Izzo has become known - has a way of wringing the best out of even his most overlooked rosters. This year was a classic example. When tipoff approached on Sunday night in Atlanta in the South Regional Final against the No. 1 Auburn Tigers, Izzo’s ninth Final Four appeared within reach.

But alas, it was not meant to be.

In many ways, Michigan State did a lot of the things that they needed to do to beat Auburn. The Spartans’ x-factor power forward, Jaxon Kohler, posted an impressive double-double with 17 points and 11 rebounds. It was a bounce-back performance for Kohler after he had struggled earlier in the tournament.

Auburn star center and player-of-the-year candidate Johni Broome scored 25 points and grabbed 14 rebounds, but the Spartans generally held the rest of the Auburn offense in check. The Spartans held the No. 3 team in offensive efficiency to just 70 points, 13.2 below their season average.

“If you would have told me that we would have held those guards to 20-some percent from three, I (would have) thought we had a great chance to win the game," Izzo said.

As a team, Auburn shot just 28% from deep in the win over Michigan State. Broome was 2-for-2 despite shooting only 28% from three on the season. The rest of the Tigers shot just 5-for-23 (22%) from three.

While Izzo cited a few defensive breakdowns and turnovers as some of the reasons for the loss, Michigan State simply failed to score enough points, especially at the rim. Auburn’s length and defensive presence in the paint seemed to get into the heads of the Michigan State players.

“I thought we just panicked a little bit, which I'm a little surprised at,” Izzo said. “We made some mental mistakes, and we did it with some guys that are pretty intelligent.”

Izzo also pointed out that no one on the roster had advanced this far before in the NCAA Tournament. Jaden Akins logged 37 minutes in Michigan State’s 2023 Sweet Sixteen loss to Kansas State. Carson Cooper, Tre Holloman, and Kohler also made brief appearances in that, but that's it. It’s possible that the pressure and the moment were just too big, especially for a team that starts two freshman guards.

“We didn't do the little things that really mattered,” Izzo said.

Michigan State found themselves playing from behind for the fourth time in four games in the NCAA Tournament. Despite falling behind by as many as 15 points less than 10 minutes into the game, the Spartans were able to cut the deficit down to five points once before half time and once again just after the break.

But every time it looked like the Spartans might be able to seize momentum and potentially stage another comeback win, Michigan State made a critical error, failed to execute, or Auburn simply made a good play to respond.

That’s what Final Four and championship caliber teams do. In the final analysis of this year’s loaded tournament field, Michigan State was just a half-step back of that level.

”(Today's loss) wasn't through lack of effort,” Izzo said. “It wasn't through lack of anything, except we played a good team … I think we lost because they played better than we did.”

After the clock hit all zeros and as the Auburn players and coaches celebrated on the court, the Michigan State coaches and players displayed a range of emotions as the gravity of the finality of the season began to take hold.

In the press room afterwards, Izzo made sure that the first words to come out of his mouth after the game were to thank his visibly emotional players.

"I am not sure I've ever been prouder of a team," he said. "These guys gave me everything they had. I drained them of everything. All in all, (this has been) the most unbelievable year I've had, the most connected year I've had. I just appreciate what these guys did for myself, our program, our university, and our community."

There were a lot of tears in the press conference and in the locker room on Sunday night. There always are in a game of this magnitude. But on some level, Izzo saw the positive in the way that his players responded to the loss. People only cry when they truly care about something, someone, or a group of someones.

"If you've been in the locker room, there's some locker rooms that people are bitching and complaining, and there's some locker rooms where people are crying and hugging," he explained. "It was a crying and hugging locker room (tonight), and that means we had something special. I'm going to appreciate that."