On Thursday afternoon the No.2 seed Michigan State Spartans found themselves in battle with the No.15 seed Bradley Braves. They eventually won the game 76-65 but not without boyz getting chewed out by Tom Izzo. Indianapolis native and former Ben Davis standout Aaron Henry caught the brunt of Tom Izzo’s fire late in the second half during a timeout so bad that they had to be separated.
Izzo was going off about Henry’s effort defensively and ole boy completely snapped on him. It was so bad that point guard Cassius Winston had to step in and help cool the situation off by telling Henry what Izzo wanted from him.
Tom Izzo goes after Aaron Henry pretty hard. pic.twitter.com/A4KUMT6XWa
— Jordan Heck (@JordanHeckFF) March 21, 2019
After the game Izzo had this to say about it, “What’s wrong with challenging a kid that makes some mistakes? Aaron Henry — trust me — did some things that you can’t do as a starter on a top-5 team at the end of your freshman year. They were effort-related.”
He goes on to say, “I did get after him. He did respond. He did make a couple of big buckets. He did make some big free throws but that’s not good enough. It’s one-and-done time. The ‘my-bads’ are out the window.”
Tom Izzo was asked about getting after Aaron Henry.
"I don't know what kind of business you're in, but I tell ya what, if I was a head of a newspaper, and you didn't do your job, you'd be held accountable." pic.twitter.com/kqcWykUY6X
— Brad Galli (@BradGalli) March 21, 2019
Here’s what Aaron Henry had to say about it afterwards, “I’ve heard worse from him. I’ve got it worse in practice before.”
Let’s keep it real or all the way 100, whichever comes 1st! It’s big time college basketball and it’s win or go home time. The margin for error in the NCAA Tournament is slim to none. Tom Izzo is no different than any other great coach that wins all of the time. Boyz are held accountable like no other. If you don’t want to be jammed up then go play at a program that doesn’t win. It’s easy to play in programs with a losing culture because no one is held accountable.
When you sign up to play for Tom Izzo you already know that he will light you up because the level of expectation at Michigan State is through the roof. Aaron Henry knew who Tom Izzo was before he got to East Lansing. He could have gone to other schools but he chose to play for Tom Izzo.
Follow any great coach around and he’s 5 minutes from cursing somebody out for not living up to the level of expectation that it takes to win at the level they want to win at. It is what it is. Being held accountable is a part of being great as a player and as a person. At some point if you’re going to be great at what you do you’ve got to be held accountable when you make mistakes. If you don’t want to be held accountable quit and go home.
So if that comes down to a coach cursing you out and pointing his finger in your face, telling you that you need to play harder and better than you’re currently playing, so be it. I’ll guarantee you this. Aaron Henry will be a better player today than he was yesterday because his effort will go up another 50 percent from Thursday.
Bruh, have you heard the stories of how Coach K can go off on a player too? He just doesn’t flip out in a game situation but he’s just as on edge as Izzo. You already know how Nick Saban gets down and cats like Urban Meyer etc. In order to win at a certain level you’ve got to have standards and unfortunately, greatness comes out of holding people accountable. I don’t know of a single coach that was/is great that didn’t go off with the exception of Tony Dungy and I’ll guarantee you that he had a dun on his staff that did the dirty work of cursing boyz out. Trust and believe that.
Aaron Henry will be just fine and in another year or so when he’s about to be drafted into the NBA he’ll look back on this moment and say thanks coach Izzo for getting in my butt and making me work that much harder. Stop me when I start lyin’!
Playas Thesaurus:
1) Dun: noun – the person in question, dude, guy, etc. It’s whoever I’m talkin’ about and its non-gender specific.