After buzzing through the conference schedule with a 17-3 record (26-5 overall record) and winning the league title by three games, Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo was named the 2024-2025 Big Ten Coach of the Year on Tuesday afternoon.
Izzo has now won the top coaching award in the conference for the fourth time in his 30-year career, and for the first time since 2012. That makes him just the fifth coach to win it at least four different times since it was first awarded during the 1973-1974 season, joining Indiana’s Bobby Knight, Purdue’s Gene Keady and Matt Painter, and Wisconsin’s Bo Ryan.
Some of the other anticipated candidates for the award this year were Greg Gard (Wisconsin), Dusty May (Michigan) and Kevin Willard (Maryland). Izzo’s squad went a combined 4-0 against those three teams in the regular season.
Izzo ascended back to the top of the conference this season, despite MSU being picked to finish fifth in the Big Ten prior to the season and being unranked in the preseason Associated Press Poll.
Michigan State quickly showed it was better than expected, beginning the season 18-2 overall and winning its first nine Big Ten games.
Even after adversity hit and the team lost three out of four games, Izzo and his staff helped regroup the team for what was a brutal schedule to end the regular season.
MSU ended up winning seven games in a row to win its first Big Ten title since 2020 and its first outright championship since 2018. Six of those seven wins were against teams currently ranked in the latest edition of the AP Poll.
Izzo’s 11th Big Ten title was also done without what many fan and pundits consider a true "go-to guy" or star for most of the season. Other conference contenders and Coach of the Year candidates all had at least one player like that. Maryland had Derik Queen, Michigan had Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin, and Wisconsin had John Tonje, for example.
MSU did it with “strength in numbers" mantra instead. Izzo has routinely given 10 players meaningful minutes throughout the season, constantly subbing guys in and out, presumably to help keep players fresh for later and to keep opponents on their toes about what type of lineup the Spartans have on the court.
It’s worked, particularly in the Spartans' current winning streak. Izzo’s squad has trailed at halftime in five of its last seven games and had overcame deficits as large as 16 points at Illinois and 14 points at Iowa.
The award is another accomplishment for Izzo in a season full of them. Izzo surpassed Indiana's Knight for the Big Ten record for conference wins by one coach in that aforementioned Illinois game, and his 11th regular season conference title also tied the Big Ten record for one coach, as well.
Additionally, Michigan State associate head coach Doug Wojcik was named the Howard Moore Assistant Coach of the Year. The award is named after former Wisconsin assistant coach Howard Moore, and recognizes the top men's basketball assistant coach in the Big Ten Conference
Izzo’s seventh-ranked Michigan State squad will be back in action this coming Friday, March 14 in the Big Ten Tournament. The top-seeded Spartans will face either No. 8 seed Oregon or No. 9 Indiana in the quarterfinal round at noon Eastern Time that day. That game will be played at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana — along with any other conference tournament games to follow — and will be televised on Big Ten Network.
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