East Lansing, Michigan – Tom Izzo has turned down several coaching opportunities in the NBA, including cleveland cavaliers And atlanta hawks.
When Los Angeles Lakers were ready to give Yukon For coach Dan Hurley to sign a six-year, $70 million contract through 2024, Hurley asked Izzo for advice.
“I told him to look at it seriously because I could see where college basketball was going,” Izzo told The Associated Press on Monday. “But I said, I would hate to lose him because I think he’s got everything right about college basketball. He cares about the kids. He cares about the game. He cares about the game because of his dad.”
Bob Hurley Sr. won more than two dozen state championships at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, New Jersey, developing dozens of Division I college players.
Izzo and the third seed michigan state Hurley and the second-seeded Huskies will face Washington in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament on Friday night.
Hurley, 53, who is in his eighth season at UConn, won back-to-back national championships in 2023-24. He is 17–5 in the NCAA Tournament, winning 77.3% of his games, ranking No. 1 among active coaches and fourth among coaches with at least 15 games played.
The 71-year-old Izzo earned a record 28 consecutive bids to March Madness and won an NCAA title in 2000 – the last by a Big Ten team – in one of his eight Final Four appearances during his Hall of Fame career.
