Tom Izzo, along with Shaquille O'Neal and Steve Nash, will be featured in this year's Dove 'Comfortable in my own skin' commercials during the NCAA Tournament. Izzo's commercial is above, talking about the crazy costumes he wears during Midnight Madness every year.
He also talked about filming the commercials with SLAM!'s Kyle Stack:
You know, I’ll be honest with you. I’m not opposed to doing some [endorsements], but I don’t really do a lot of them. I was watching some of the commercials and sitting there with my wife, I saw John Thompson III and [Kirk] Herbstreit, and I know both guys pretty well. I’m sitting there…Dove Men+Care is about being comfortable in your own skin. I’m thinking about that, ‘It’s not me.’
I watched the commercial, and then I saw Magic’s. Of course, being a Michigan State guy and it all seemed so natural that when they approached me—I’ll be honest with you—I said ‘yes’ right away. I just thought it would be a cool thing to do.
Some links after the jump.
Iowa hopes quarterfinal game against Michigan State will be 'totally different' from last time | MLive.com
To be fair, Fran McCaffery made the last game pretty hard to forget: "Iowa guard Bryce Cartwright said McCaffery told the team after the loss in East Lansing to remember that game. The Hawkeyes, now 17-15, certainly seem to have done so. "That loss is fresh in my mind," said forward Aaron White, who led Iowa with 15 points in that game. "We just went up there and really got beat up. I think we’re playing a lot better basketball than we were at that point, and we’re playing a lot more confident. Our seniors have really stepped up. It’s going to be a totally different game than it was in East Lansing.""
Mel Kiper sizes up Lions, Spartans, Wolverines in NFL draft conference call | Detroit Free Press | freep.com
Kiper did a conference call with Detroit area reporters and talked about Jerel Worthy and Kirk Cousins: "Worthy’s a good football player. He had a real good season. For the last two years, he did a real good job. Not a sack artist, but he occupies, he stays on his feet, he locates the ball, and he’s been a guy that’s made some good things happen. He can shoot that gap. He’s not going to get you a lot of sacks, but as a run-stuffer, he’s very good. As an occupier, he’s very good. He frees up those linebackers very effectively. So, to me, Worthy has first-round value, but he still could be there in the second round." Kiper projects MSU quarterback Kirk Cousins as a third-rounder: "Struggled in the red zone with some picks and made some mistakes. It wasn’t all his fault. But good, solid quarterback. Is he ever going to be any better than that? Maybe not, but he’s in the second-round discussion as well."
Big Ten tournament preview: Ohio State sitting pretty at No. 3? | The Dagger: College Basketball Blog - Yahoo! Sports
The Dagger on Day-Day: "Draymond Green, F, Michigan State — If you like humble, hard-working, consistent, productive seniors, there's none finer in the country. Aside from the numbers (16.2 ppg, 10.3 rpg, 3.5 apg), he's the reason the Spartans are where they are entering March."
Plan B: Michigan State to replace Branden Dawson with 2 players | Detroit Free Press | freep.com
Brandon Wood will handle the offense and Brandan Kearney will handle the defense in Branden Dawson's absence: "Brandan Kearney also is likely to see a few more minutes. The freshman guard played well offensively early in the Big Ten season but has scored just two points in the last 10 games. Defense is why he gets minutes. When asked if Dawson's absence would change his role -- he averaged 10 minutes a game the previous 10 -- Kearney said: "A bit. (Mostly) I have to pick up my defensive rebounding.""