Michigan State men's basketball coach Tom Izzo got a bit defensive when asked about a tactical decision from Friday's 83-71 loss to Michigan.
Izzo sat Carson Cooper after the starting center got called for his second foul nearly midway through the opening half. The Wolverines, who already jumped out to an 18-7 lead at East Lansing, went into halftime up 42-26.
After the game, a reporter asked Izzo if he considered leaving Cooper in the game despite the senior's early foul trouble. The veteran head coach confirmed that he did before inviting someone else to see if they could do a better job running the team.
"Tell all your people that write in, if they want to coach the team, they can coach the team," Izzo said. "Including you."
"Come on and watch"
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Izzo noted that he typically prefers to remove players in foul trouble, but the opposite decision has also garnered second-guessing.
"When you've been here 30 years, and you've had different writers and different fans, and I have played guys with two (fouls) and gotten their third," Izzo said. "And you know what the same writers and the same fans said? 'Why in the hell would you do that?'"
Izzo then called out the media for not taking full advantage of his weekly open sessions. He told reporters they're welcome inside the facility "in time to see me brush my teeth before I come down to practice."
“If I’m a little testy on it, you guys, I invite you to practice once a week," Izzo told reporters. "Three or four of you come for like 20 minutes. I invite you for the whole freaking practice. Come on and watch. You get an idea why I play some guys."
Izzo also accused the journalists of not paying attention during practices.
"Most of you don’t want to come up and sit through the whole thing. And if you do, you’re up there talking and gaggling and everything else. You’re not watching to see what’s going on. So don’t kid yourselves.”