Tom Izzo, by the numbers

It has been over a month since Tom Izzo and the Michigan State Spartans were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament by the UConn Huskies in the Sweet 16. It will also be approximately six months before the next year's team takes to the court again. 

With the commitment of Anton Bonke on April 22 and the departure of guard Divine Ugochukwu via the transfer portal, it will likely be a quiet summer in East Lansing on the basketball front.

But one thing that Spartan fans can count on is that one of the best coaches in the history of the game will once again be patrolling the sidelines next season in the Breslin center. As summer beckons, it is a good time to look back and reflect on the amazing career, so far, of Tom Izzo.

Big Ten Dominance

Tom Izzo is currently the winningest coach in the history of the Big Ten conference. He will likely hold onto this title for the foreseeable future.

As of the end of the 2026 season, he currently holds the record for both total wins at a Big Ten school (764 wins) and total Big Ten conference wins (375 wins).

Izzo's total win count exceeds second place (Indiana legend Bob Knight, 659 wins) by over 100 wins and the next highest active coach (Matt Painter of Purdue, 501) by over 250 wins. 

Knight is also currently in second place in all-time Big Ten wins with 353. Painter is sitting at fourth place (251 wins) just behind his predecessor, Gene Keady (265 wins).

In 2025, Izzo tied the record for the most regular season Big Ten Titles (11). Knight and Purdue's Ward Lambert (1919-1946) also both have 11 titles.

Izzo also owns the record for the most Big Ten Tournament titles at six. Former Ohio State coach Thad Matta is in second place with four titles. Painter and former Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan each have three titles. 

Performance Against Michigan

It is time to address the carrion-eating, glutenous member of the weasel family in the room. 

It is both true and unfortunate that Dust May and his roster of transfer portal mercenaries cut down the nets in Indianapolis a few weeks ago. But it is also true that historically, Tom Izzo has had his way with the Wolverines.

After taking over the program from Jud Heathcote in 1996, Izzo lost his first five head-to-head matchups with the Wolverines. However, all five of those victories were later vacated by Michigan for the recruiting violations incurred during the Fab Five era.

From 1998 to 2010, Michigan State and Izzo were 18-3 against Michigan in head-to-head matchups. During this span, the Spartan never finished below Michigan in the regular season standings and MSU fans never saw Michigan advance farther in the NCAA Tournament. In fact, Michigan only qualified for two NCAA Tournaments over that 13-year span.

Since 2011, the rivalry has been more competitive. But even considering only this generous timeframe, outside of Michigan's surprising 32-to-26 edge in total NCAA Tournament wins, Izzo and the Spartans have the edge in virtually all other categories.

Michigan State has more total wins (400 to 382), more Big Ten wins (201 to 187), more Big Ten regular season titles (five to four), more Big Ten Tournament Titles (four to three), and more head-to-head wins (17 to 14).

Over that 16-year span, the Spartans also finished ahead of the Wolverines in Kenpom's ranking 10 times, in the final AP poll eight times, and in the final coach's poll seven times (with two years where neither team was ranked).

Over the past 29 years, Michigan has finished ahead of Michigan State just three times in the final Big Ten standings and only five times has Michigan earned a higher Big Ten Tournament seed. Michigan has only finished the season ranked higher in Kenpom six times.

Michigan State also had definitively better seasons than Michigan three of the last four years.

Maybe things will suddenly be different assuming that May stays in Ann Arbor for an extended period of time. Or, maybe they won't. 

May certainly struck gold in the transfer portal in 2026 and is attempting to do so once more this off season. Throwing money at the problem during the summer of 2025 turned out to be a success. But history shows that significant use of the transfer portal has very mixed results.

In the three seasons that the portal has been in heavy use and transfer portal class rankings have been tabulated, less than half (47%) of the teams that boast a top 25 portal class even make the Tournament in the following year. The teams that did make the tournament averaged between a No. 6 and a No. 7 seed.

Furthermore, of the teams that made it to the tournament, many of them experienced an early exit. Of the teams that finished in the top 10 in the last three transfer portal rankings, over 40% suffered an upset loss.

Perhaps May has a special ability to identify and develop talent from the portal. Perhaps he has the even more special ability to make teenage and early 20s millionaires work as a cohesive unit in just a few months. 

I certainly would have never guessed that Michigan's squad of portal all-stars would have the No. 1 rated defense by the end of the 2026 season. But May proved that it could be done. Once. Can he do it again?

Some folks have the good fortune of drawing a royal flush from the deck. But only foolish people then assume that based on this result they are simply really good at poker. 

History suggests that the better long-term strategy is to build a foundation with high school recruiting and to supplement that talent from the portal when needed. Tom Izzo believes in that strategy because he believes that locker room harmony and continuity is essential.

Perhaps we truly are in a new era of college basketball and that the old rules no longer apply. Maybe it is possible to maintain locker room harmony with a constant revolving door via the portal. Maybe.

But human nature tends to be constant over time, and recency biased tends to fool people into thinking that just because something worked last year that next year the results will be the same.

Maybe this year, Tom Izzo and those who think like him will be wrong. But, I seriously doubt it.

NCAA Tournament Performance

While Tom Izzo's dominance over Big Ten opponents is remarkable, college basketball fans across the country will always remember Izzo as "Mr. March" for his consistent excellence in the Big Dance.

Going forward, note that all NCAA Tournament stats and metrics are from the current modern era of the tournament, which I define as starting in 1979. This is the first year when teams were seeded and it is was the first time the Tournament included more than 32 teams. 

Most fans are aware of Izzo's current record of 28 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. Mark Few and Gonzaga are right on the Spartans' heels with 27 consecutive appearance. But the next closest active steak is Purdue with 11, thanks in part to the fact that Kansas and Bill Self's 2018 tournament appearance was vacated.

But Izzo's March accomplishments go far beyond staying power. As of 2026, he has 61 NCAA Tournament wins, which places him in a three-way tie all time with Jim Boeheim and John Calipari. Only Mike Krzyewski (101 wins) and Roy Williams (79) have more.

His overall tournament record of 61-27 (0.693) places him clearly in the top 20 all-time in the modern era for coaches with more than two appearances.

Izzo has advanced to the Sweet 16 a total of 17 times which equates to 61% of his appearances. This is tied with Calipari and only behind Boeheim (19), Williams (19), and Krzyewski (26). 

Note that since 1998, Coach K (18) is the only coach with more Sweet 16 appearance than Izzo. Furthermore, there are only eight other programs total that have more than 17 Sweet 16 appearances since 1979 (Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas, Arizona, Louisville, UCLA, and Syracuse). 

Izzo has more Sweet 16 appearances than Washington, Minnesota, USC, Nebraska, Penn State, Rutgers, and Northwestern combined (15) in the modern era.

He has advanced to the Elite Eight a total of 11 times (39% of appearances). This total is tied with Self for fifth place behind Rick Pitino (12), Calipari (12), Williams (13), and Krzyewski (17). 

Self is the only other coach with at least 11 regional final appearances since 1998. Only Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas, and UConn have more Elite Eight appearance in the modern era than Izzo. He also has more Elite Eight appearances than half of the Big Ten combined.

Izzo has been to the Final Four a total of eight times (29% of all appearances), which trails only Williams (nine) and Krzyewski (13). Only North Carolina, Duke, Kansas, and Kentucky, as programs, have more Final Fours in the modern era than Izzo. 

No other coach has more than seven Final Fours since 1998. Izzo also has at least twice as many Final Fours as all Big Ten teams in the modern era except UCLA, not counting vacated appearances.

Upsets and Two-Day Preps

While the raw numbers are impressive, they only tell a part of the story. Not all NCAA tournament paths are the same. It is significantly easier to advance in the tournament as a high seed and harder as a lower seed. Izzo has shown that he can do both.

Another record that he currently holds is the total number tournament win as the lower seed (17). The only other coaches in history with more than 10 seed upset wins are Boeheim (15), Arizona's Lute Olson (11), and Villanova legend Rollie Massimino (11). The active coach with the next highest number of upset wins is Few with nine.

To put this into perspective, Izzo has as many or more upset wins in the Tournament than several other legendary coaches have total tournament games played as the lower seed. This includes Krzyewski (12 total games as the underdog out of 132 total games), Williams (15), Pitino (17), Calipari (17), Self (nine), Florida's Billy Donovan (nine), North Carolina's Dean Smith (eight), and just to name a few.

Figure 1 below visualizes this performance by plotting the winning percentages for roughly the top 50 NCAA Tournament coaches of all time. This group loosely contains all coaches with at least 20 tournament wins in the modern era or active coaches with at least 10 wins.

The x-axis shows the winning percentage for each coach as the seed favorite. The y-axis shows the winning percentage for each coach as the underdog. The numbers in parathesis give the total number of tournament games each coach has played as either the favorite or the underdog.

Figure 1: Winning percentages for the top 56 all-time NCAA tournament coaches divided up by wins as the favorite (x-axis) and as the underdog (y-axis). The numbers in parathesis give the total number of tournament games each coach has played as either the favorite or the underdog.

The green square in figure one maps out the area where Izzo has a better win percentage both as the favorite and as the underdog. Only 14 total coaches fall outside of this area.

There are only eight total coaches in this group that have a better win percentage as the favorite than Izzo and only four have played more than eight games as the higher seed. Izzo has coached in 52 games as the higher seed.

The four coaches with that higher volume are UConn's Boddy Hurley (16-2 as the favorite), Louisville legend Denny Crum (28-4), Utah and St. Louis' Rick Majerus (14-2), and former West Virginia and Michigan coach John Beilein (17-3). These coaches all edge Tom Izzo's 44-8 record and 84.6% win percentage as a favorite.

Note that both Chris Beard (7-0), Brad Stevens (6-0), Massimino (7-0) are all undefeated as the higher seed, but on fairly low volume. May's 7-1 record as the favorite is also notable.

There are a total of eight coaches in this group with a higher win percentage than Izzo as the underdog. Only three of them have more than 10 games as the lower seed. This list includes former Florida State coach Lennard Hamilton (6-5), former Xavier and Louisville coach Chris Mack (5-4), former Miami coach Jim Laranaga (9-8), former Ohio State coach Thad Matta (5-4), Donovan (6-3), and former Kansas and SMU coach Larry Brown (7-3).

May (4-2) and Massimino (11-9) are the only coaches on this list with a better win percentage than Izzo as both the higher and lower seed.

Izzo is also know for his skill in preparing his team for the second game of the weekend. His teams have a reputation for strong play after a "two-day prep." Quantitatively, Figure 2 below compares the performance of the same group of coaches as Figure 1. 

In this case the x-axis shows the win percentage on the first game of the weekend. The y-axis shows the win percentage for the second games where the two-day prep is needed.

Figure 2: Winning percentages for the top 56 all-time NCAA tournament coaches divided up by wins on the first day of the weekend (x-axis) and wins on the second day (y-axis) where a two-day prep is needed. The numbers in parathesis give the total number of tournament games each coach has played as in both scenarios.

On the first day of the weekend, Izzo's record of 35-17 (67%) is one of the few fairly pedestrian NCAA Tournament stats on his resume. It is good for just 26th place among this group of 56 coaches.

But Figure 2 does bolster the idea that he has a special ability to prepare his team on a limited timeline. Only six coaches own a better second day win percentage then Tom Izzo at 26-9 (74%) and only three of those coaches have done it having played more than six games.

The only high volume coaches on this list are Larranaga (7-2, 78%), Crum (18-4, 82%), and Krzyewski (44-14, 76%). The other three coaches are Iowa State's T.J. Otzelberger (3-1, 75%), Arizona's Tommy Llyod (5-0, 100%), and May (6-0, 100%). 

In both Figures 1 and 2, it is important to note that having a reasonable sample size is important. For example, after just his sixth year as a head coach, Tom Izzo was 16-3 (84%) in NCAA Tournament play with a National Title and two additional Final Fours and a Sweet 16 appearance in four tournaments.

Over this span, he was 16-1 (94%) as the higher seed and 0-1 as the underdog. Izzo was also 8-3 (73%) on the first day of the weekend and a perfect 8-0 on the second day.

Advanced NCAA Tournament Performance Metrics

The data presented above clearly demonstrates the historical dominance of Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo. But as mentioned previously, not all NCAA Tournament paths are created equally. Fortunately, there are more advanced ways to level the playing field by looking at metrics that measure performance compared to expectations.

In total, there are five performance-versus-expectation metrics that I tabulate for the NCAA Tournament. Two of these metrics are commonly used by others, two of them I created myself, and one is another fairly simple accounting stat. 

PASE (performance against seed expectation):

PASE is the "original" advanced NCAA tournament metric. It measures the number of wins for each coach or team relative to the historical total number of wins per tournament for teams with a given seed. For example, No. 1 seeds have historically won 3.34 games per tournament since 1985. In order for a No. 1 seed to overachieve with a positive PASE score, they need to win four games and advance at least to the Final Four.

PARIS (performance against round-independent seed):

PARIS is a metric that I created that measures almost the same thing as PASE. The difference is that I consider the historical win percentage for each seed in each round separately and not for the tournament as a whole. 

PAD (performance against exact seed differential):

PAD is a variation on PARIS that I created which takes into account the seed of the opponent for each tournament game. For example, played a No. 15 seed in the second round is quite a bit easier than facing a No. 2 seed. PAD accounts for this difference, while PASE and PARIS do not.

PAKE (performance against Kenpom expectation):

PAKE is the other commonly-used metric that is similar to my PAD metric. PAKE accounts for the true strength of each opponent in each Tournament game, regardless of seed, based on Kenpom efficiencies. However, this metric only goes back in time as far as 2002.

Chalk (+/-)

This is a simple accounting stat that measures the total number of games won by a coach or team relative to the situation where the higher seeds win all tournament games up to the Final Four rounds. Chalk and PASE give similar information.

In order to get a sense of the range and distribution of the PASE metric, Figure 3 gives the current PASE score for all 720 coaches who have appeared in an NCAA Tournament game since 1979 sorted from high to low.

Figure 3: PASE metric for all NCAA Tournament coaches from 1979 through 2026

The values range from +17.10 down to -8.58. Moreover, note that the highest data point are the far left of the figure sticks up considerably farther than even the second place coach.

That data point at the far left belongs to Tom Izzo.

Izzo's current PASE value of +17.10 is a full 4.54 points ahead of the coach in second place (Crum) and 5.57 points ahead of the Pitino, the active coach with the next highest score.

Izzo's current score is not only the top score of 2026. It is also the highest score recorded by any coach at any point in the history of the NCAA Tournament. Krzyewski had a PASE of +16.05 following Duke's National Championship in 2001 but retired after the 2022 season with a PASE of +11.63. 

Crum maxed out in 1998 with a PASE of +14.33. Pitino's PASE has been as high as +13.68 after the 2015 season. Calipari reached a maximum of +11.49 in 2019 and Roy Williams was at +11.29 after winning a title in 2017. Billy Donovan has a PASE of +10.58 in 2014 before moving on to the NBA.

Massimino has a PASE of +10.76 in 1989 and John Beilein had his PASE as high as +10.87 in 2018. Former Michigan coach Steve Fisher had a PASE of +10.09 in 1994 with a team full of ineligible players. No other coach in history has topped a PASE of +10 at any point in their career.

The story is the same for most of the other metrics. Tom Izzo also owns the all-time best score in my PARIS metric (+9.89), PAD metric (+9.86) as well as the Chalk metric (+14). The only other coach in history with a double-digit Chalk score is Massimino (+12). The next highest active coaches are Danny Hurley and Oregon's Dana Altman with +7.

The only metric where Izzo does not currently own first place is the PAKE metric. Izzo's PAKE of +5.83 is currently third place behind Boeheim (+6.79) and Roy Williams (+6.26). The next highest active coach is Hurley at +5.01.

But keep in mind that my tabulated PAKE only goes back to 2002. So even when Izzo's national title and first three Final Fours are not considered, he is still in the top three all time for performance relative to Kenpom efficiency.

Beyond simply the raw numbers, the metrics can be compared in unique ways.

For example, the PARIS and PAD metrics have certain mathematical properties which allow us to extract some additional interesting information. Specifically, the PARIS metric compares performance per round to the historically average performance for every team of the same seed in that round. 

The PAD metric is very similar, but it references the specific seed of each opponent and is therefore a more accurate measure of the true difficultly of each tournament game

Because of this difference, when each team's PAD score is subtracted from its PARIS score, the value represents the amount of "luck" that a team or coach has had in the opponents that they have faced relative to average.

This effect is best shown below in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Comparison of NCAA Tournament luck (as measured by the difference between PARIS and PAD) and true NCAA tournament performance relative to expectation (PAD)

Figure 4 compares the "luck score" (PAD subtracted from PARIS) to the PAD metric, which is indicative of the "true" performance versus expectation in NCAA Tournament play. Figure 1 includes data from all 720 head coaches who have appeared on the sidelines of at least one Tournament game. 

The vast majority of these data points are clustered near the origin. However, several notable coaches appear in the area outside of this middle region. Each coach's position on the graph gives information about the relative impact of "luck" on their tournament performance relative to expectation.

The upper right-hand corner of the graph highlights coaches with both positive PAD and luck metrics. In other words, on average these coaches have been both lucky and good. Most notable in this section of the graph are Krzyzewski, Beilein, Boeheim, Calhoun, May and the all-time king of NCAA Tournament luck, former Florida coach Bill Donovan. 

Coach Donovan's example helps to illustrate the meaning of the luck metric. A No. 15 seed has defeated a No. 2 seed in the first round a total of 11 times in Tournament history. Naturally, this upset will usually favor the remaining teams in that half of the bracket, as the nominally "strong" No. 2 seed has been eliminated. 

While at Florida, Billy Donovan benefited from this type of upset of a No.2 seed in both the 2012 tournament (as a No. 7 seed) and in the 2013 tournament (as a No. 3 seed).

While Donovan certainly enjoyed a lot of tournament success, his performance relative to expectation was certainly padded later in his career due to some fortunate upsets in his part of the bracket. Similarly, Krzyewski, Beilein, and Boeheim have been similarly "lucky" compared to the average NCAA Tournament coach. 

The lower right-hand corner of the graph is home to coaches who have been successful relative to expectation despite some below-average tournament luck. The notable coaches here are Roy Williams, Maryland's Gary Williams, Sean Miller, Majerus, Beard and Massimino.

Tom Izzo's position in Figure 4 is relatively unique. Not only is his PAD score significantly larger than any other coach in history, Izzo also accomplished accomplished this feat with historically average luck.

Figure 4 also identifies the most unlucky coach as all time, Arizona's Lute Olson. He had his share of big wins and terrible losses, but in a total of 73 tournament games, Olson only faced six opponents which were more than one seed line below the "chalk" value for that round. 

By comparison, Donovan faced 15 opponents more than one seed line below the "chalk" value in just 47 NCAA Tournament games. Dusty May already has three such games in just 15 total games.

The upper left-hand side of the figure displays coaches who have had below average performance relative to expectation, but who have been a bit lucky with their tournament draws. The notable coaches here are Bob Huggins and Bill Self.

Figure 4 also highlights some of the biggest underachievers in tournament history on the far left side of the graph. Virginia's Tony Bennett has the third lowest PAD (-4.22) and second lowest PASE (-8.50) on record, but he was slightly lucky on balance.

Rick Barnes (PAD of -4.81), Gene Keady (-4.21), and Jamie Dixon (-3.35) are the other notable coaches who historically bring up the rear in tournament performance relative to expectation.

For the final comparison for today, Figure 5 compares the PAKE metric to the PAD metric, as calculated since 2002.

Figure 5: Comparison of the PAKE metric to the PAD metric since 2002 for all NCAA Tournament coaches.

As expected, these two metrics are closely correlated. Both metrics are attempting to measure the number of actual wins compared to the number of expected tournament wins. 

PAKE measures expected tournament wins based on the victory probability derived from Kenpom efficiency data (which correlates very strongly to Las Vegas betting lines). The seeds of the teams do not factor in at all. This is likely the most accurate way to measure performance versus expectation, but the data set is limited.

PAD measures expected tournament wins based on the historical data correlating win probability to the combinations of seeds playing in each game. The results of this calculation also correlate strongly to historical Vegas lines. 

Most of the data points in Figure 5 fall onto or near the trendline. What is interesting about Figure 2 is the coaches whose data deviates noticeably from that line. Izzo, for example, has a higher PAD score than his PAKE score. Few and Bo Ryan similarly appear above the trendline in Figure 2, while Boeheim, Roy Williams, and Self all fall below the line.

I interpret this deviation as related to the accuracy of the seeding by the Selection Committee. If a coach has a higher PAD than PAKE, that implies that Kenpom data suggests that a coach has more expected wins than is implied based on the seed combinations. 

That coach's team, on average, has been better than their seeds imply (and/or their opponents have on average been worse). In other words, on average, that coach has been historically under-seeded. Coaches Izzo, Few, and Ryan fall into this category. 

The opposite is also true, Figure 2 suggests that Boeheim, Roy Williams, and Bill Self on average have received a higher seed than they deserve.