Spartans Celebrate Tom Izzo's 55th Birthday with a 79-70 Win Over Northwestern

Breslin Center

East Lansing, MI

 

The Izzone and the Players Wished Tom Izzo a Happy 55th Birthday! Photo Courtesy of Mark Boomgaard.

The Spartans still hadn’t got the memo that their slow starts were supposed to be over. Northwestern came out playing tough and with the Spartans poor first half shooting performance the Wildcats went to the locker room at halftime only down two.

 

The Spartans couldn’t hit a shot. I counted six in the first half that literally went in and bounced out. Not counting a myriad of shots that went off the rim. Luckily they seemed to have stifled their turnover problem with only four in the first half and 10 for the game.

 

The second half was another story. On his 55th birthday Tom Izzo’s half time speech probably peeled the paint of his newly built and still shiny Spartan locker room. They responded shooting an astonishing 75% in the second half.

 

Pleased with the win, Izzo had some interesting comments about another slow start by his Spartans, “Believe it or not I think that was one of our best.”

 

With just over 17 minutes to go in the game Chris Allen came down the court with a one-handed circus dunk that could have won the NBA dunk contest. That sent the Breslin crowd into a spontaneous eruption of noise and from that point on the game was officially over.

 

Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody said after the game, “In the first half we established the tempo we liked…in the second half BANG!”

 

At the 15:50 mark during a time out the Izzone broke out into a chant of show the replay and even the team in the timeout huddle turned their attention from Izzo to enjoy the replay of the magnificent mixture of art and basketball that was the Allen dunk.

 

With the systematic dismantling of the Wildcats in the second half, Izzo was able to celebrate his birthday by giving a lot of guys some minutes that wouldn’t have necessarily went their way in a close one. Twelve Spartans played in total.

 

Durrell Summers led the way for the Spartans, fitting considering he started the game with a monster alley oop dunk! He had a double double with 24 points and ten boards. He led the way for the Spartans and Kalin Lucas poured in 23. Draymond Green had another great night with 11 boards and nine points.

 

The Spartans now take their 9-0 Big Ten and 19-3 record into Madison on Tuesday night. The Spartans will look to continue their school record start in the Big Ten in a place that they have struggled at in the past, the Kohl Center.

  

Interesting note:

After a very bad call by a ref on Draymond Green being out of bounds, one Izzoner yelled, “You got money on the game Donaghy.” Referring to disgraced NBA ref Tim Donaghy who got in trouble for betting on NBA games. That got a chuckle from the ref.