Izzo is surpassing milestones and reached a big anniversary of his lone title. At 70, with a highly ranked team, he's hoping to add to his legacy.

Coming into this season, not much was expected for Tom Izzo’s Michigan State Spartans. The team was more or less projected to finish in the top half of the Big Ten.

And apparently he isn’t. “He has the energy of a young coach,” freshman Jase Richardson was saying in the Michigan State locker room Friday, fresh off scoring 17 points to lead the Spartans over Oregon, 74-64, in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament. “Sometimes when you’re out there, you think he’s you’re age.”

Tom Izzo did it again. Just when you thought his era of Big Ten dominance might be coming to an end, he pushed this year’s Spartans to a 17-3 conference record, a 26-5 overall mark and an 11th Big Ten regular season title — winning the league by three games over second-place Maryland and Michigan.

Before becoming one of the best coaches that Michigan State has ever seen, Tom Izzo played for Northern Michigan University from 1973-1977. In his senior year at the school, Izzo set a record for most minutes played and was named a Division II All-American.