Tom Izzo: Michigan State Lacked Leadership Last Year

Tom Izzo believes Michigan State had a leadership problem last season.

Michigan State had a very successful basketball season last year, going 29-9 and making it to the elite eight in the 2014 NCAA Tournament.

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But, considering Tom Izzo’s team entered March Madness as the favorite to win the title, it’s understandable that there is disappointment and a desire to discover what went wrong.

Well, it appears Sparty has put its finger on what went wrong and the top players from last year’s team might not be too pleased with it.

From ESPN:

"“I’ll say that Keith Appling and (Adreian Payne), they really weren’t the two who really talked a lot,” Branden Dawson said Thursday during Big Ten Media Day. “Gary Harris, he didn’t really talk like that. Keith, he was kind of shy. Now, I feel like, myself, Travis [Trice], and Denzel [Valentine] … we can talk to each other. Last year, we would talk to each other but it wasn’t like we were all on the same page.”…“I think [this is] a team with the same kind of passion we had last year, the same kind of camaraderie, but a little better leadership,” [Izzo] said. “Last year just wasn’t … it wasn’t a strength of our team. It wasn’t necessarily a weakness, but we had, we didn’t have quite the leadership that I think we have with Travis Trice and Denzel Valentine.”"

It’s certainly an interesting revelation, considering many had faith in this team having that necessary leadership and experience to win a title.

It just goes to show that a team can be suffering from problems internally that those outside of it have no idea about.

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