Tom Izzo Eight Quotations

I said that there could be eight teams vie for the championship. I think scheduling (the Big Ten doesn't play a round robin, so some teams play others just once) is gonna play a part in everything. I still think our conference could fight to be the strongest in the country. When you look top to bottom at the conference race this year, four losses could win it, maybe more.

I think you have to give George Mason a lot of credit. They took it to us early, kicked our butts inside and shot 70 percent on us with eight or nine minutes to go in the second half. ... I've got to say that in my nine years, this is one of the more disappointing evenings I've had in this job.

I'm excited about the Big Ten. It's great to have our league being talked about. I think every team in the league is making some strides, and I still think there are eight teams in the league that could win the Big Ten championship.

It's great to have our league being talked about. Every team in the league is making some strides. I still think eight teams can win the Big Ten championship and in the long run that's going to help our recruiting, our exposure and the respect for our league.

I look at our record and eight losses is more than I'd like to see, but I also look at it like, I haven't lost any confidence in this team. I'm disappointed maybe in the consistency of a couple guys, but I haven't lost confidence in what I think we can still do. ... There's nobody I'm afraid to play, and I just want to start playing better, consistently, ourselves.

It reminds you of the NBA draft. If you play well at the end of the year one time, the other 30 games don't matter. There are times we could be a five, six, seven or an eight team. It just depends.

You have to look at the first game, and it's hard to look past it in this tournament, especially now when you see some of the eight, nine and 10 seeds. Kentucky and Wisconsin as eight and nine seeds, that tells you the 11 seeds are going to be pretty good basketball teams.