NCAA Basketball: Top 10 head coaches from past decade (2010-19)
By Joey Loose
6. Tom Izzo
While the Big Ten remains one of the very best conferences in all of college basketball, Izzo has done a fantastic job of not only keeping the Spartans near the top of the league but near the top of the national stage.
This past decade saw Izzo’s Spartans finish no lower than 5th in Big Ten play, making all ten NCAA Tournaments, and advancing to the Final Four three times along the way. Obviously, the lack of a national title dulls his star a fair bit, but it’s still safe to put Izzo among the very best in the nation for these efforts.
In six of the ten Tournaments, Michigan State advanced beyond the opening weekend, while the Final Four runs in 2010, 2015, and 2019 clearly stand out. The Spartans are a juggernaut under Izzo’s reign, seeming to find their way to the Final Four every few seasons and that was no different this decade. In fact, last year’s team won 32 games en route to the Final Four, the program’s highest total in 20 years.
Izzo’s getting older, but he keeps putting together some incredible performances with Michigan State. While this decade didn’t see him bring his second title to the Spartans, he’s certainly set himself up well for the future. If he continues to recruit stars like Denzel Valentine and Cassius Winston, there’s no reason to doubt that we’ll see this team in the Final Four again very soon.