Tom Izzo defends his outburst at freshman Aaron Henry in NCAA Tournament, admits he’d like to ‘rewind’ some moments

WASHINGTON – Michigan State coach Tom Izzo took a lot of heat last week on social media as well as on radio and television sports talk shows after he got into the face of freshman forward Aaron Henry as Henry was walking toward his bench during a timeout.

On the eve of the Spartans’ East Regional semifinal Friday night against Louisiana State, Izzo gave an explanation for his actions Thursday that referenced the heat of the moment and trying to help a young player reach his potential.

He also said he has made mistakes in his life “but the one mistake I don’t make is my players and the coaches are usually on the same page and understand because we spend time with them.”

“I’m sure there have been times that, if I had to rewind something, I’d find a different way to do it,” said Izzo, 64, in his 24th year as head man of the Spartans. “But in the heat of the moment, a 30-second timeout, I’m not going to let one incident, one snippet, determine two years of a relationship with somebody.

“I don’t think many people can understand. I’ve heard people say, ‘Well, in business you couldn’t do this.’ No, because it’s adults to adults. We’re still talking adults to players, just like my own kid, who is an 18-year-old.

“When people have been through a lot and they have had success and they’ve been pushed to levels that they didn’t think they could be pushed to … now in saying that, do I need to figure out what approach is right? I think we do, because every player you do treat differently. You don’t treat everybody the same. Some need different things than others.

“But that thing is, I’ll say, is my fault if I offended somebody. And yet, it’s not an easy job to try to take 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds and push them to places that they’ve never been if you want to accomplish the things they want to accomplish, not that I want to accomplish. This is about their goals.

“Players make a set of goals every year, five things they want to accomplish. And I tell them at the end of that, that’s my job to hold them accountable to their goals, not my goals. So you know what? We’ll work around it. We’ll grow.”

Junior forward Nick Ward said part of what makes Izzo successful is that he “is never satisfied."

“That’s great because he wants you to be the best,” he said. “He pushes you to be the best every day. We watch film every day, see what we can do better. We go over plays, typical coach stuff. But Coach Izzo is a Hall of Famer for a reason.”