Michigan State coach Tom Izzo rips transfer portal culture, calls out tampering in college basketball

Hall of Fame coach Tom Izzo is 70-years-old and the longest-tenured active men’s college basketball coach among high major programs. He has seen some things since taking over the Michigan State program in 1995.

But nothing he’s seen is as comparably cataclysmic, he said this week in an interview with Jon Rothstein, than the transfer portal and the chaos it has wrought within the sport.

“The transfer portal is way worse than NIL,” Izzo said. “What the transfer portal does is gives a lot of middlemen a chance to come in. What I think is bothering me and my sport the most is the way people are tampering with people throughout the year.”

Izzo added that the structure of the portal and the enforcement of transfers — or lack thereof — is what he sees as one of the biggest issues facing the sport right now. Tampering remains a huge sore spot among coaches, and as Izzo noted, there was once a time when you could recruit a class and be set for several years. Now, he says, you can recruit a class and barely be set for a full season.

“Even in the NFL, NBA, you don’t tamper with a guy who has a four-year contract,” he said. “The portal never closes because you have too many dirtbags who are tampering with people and players. The worst thing I see is the tampering.”

There are potential fixes to solve the tampering issue — some, including Izzo, have proposed a one-time transfer rule — but there does not appear to be an urgency among decision-makers to address it. 

That has led to a number of coaches in the meantime to work around it by getting creative while advocating for change. And while it hasn’t stopped coaches from complaining, both publicly and privately, it has produced a fruitful dialogue led by some of the most experienced around the game.

Izzo for his part recognizes the importance of his role as an old head with a new game in town.

“I don’t like the current system,” Izzo said. “But there’s not a football or basketball coach that likes it. Some are just at the stage of their career where they can’t say it; I can say it.”

Most impressive perhaps is Izzo’s ability to rise above circumstances. He doesn’t like the transfer portal system and has expressed concerns about NIL, which has led to a rise in transfers. But Izzo remains Izzo: steady, consistent and the rock of a team that finished with 30 wins last year.

“There’s just more added to the job 1755972362,” he said. “I think we’ve made some mistakes in letting [the portal] get there. Now I think we’re too gutless to correct our own mistakes.”