The Duality Of Coaches: Tom Izzo Starts Crying His Eyes Out After Making The Elite Eight, Bruce Pearl Goes Nuts And Breaks Out An SEC Chant

I said it at some point this week or last, Tom Izzo has won me back over. This is one of those moments where you just remember all of the NCAA Tournament's of past. I'm not even talking about Izzo's previous runs, just the tournament as a whole. For everyone who spends time bitching about the transfer portal or NIL when we should just be talking about the Sweet 16, this is it right here. Find a way to win in a sloppy game against Ole Miss, in a game where Jaxon Kohler gave you nothing and keep moving on. The man was crying for the entire celebration 

Let me be clear, I'm fine with the crying. I'd probably save it for if you win the Elite Eight, but celebrating anything in March is how it should be. Winning 6 in a row is hard as shit, celebrate making the Sweet 16, Elite Eight, Final Four, whatever. On the flip side you had Bruce Pearl break out an SEC chant: 

I'm not saying Bruce Pearl is wrong or didn't celebrate right. Do whatever you want when you win. Plus, this is Auburn. They are the team of chaos. They go nuts for 40 minutes, never know who is going to fly around and next thing you know it's a 20-2 run to seal the game. But what you can't do is chant SEC. Absolutely not. I like to do the whole it just means more thing as a joke. I don't want SEC teams to win outside of Kentucky. Any fun who cheers for the conference is a loser. I'm not saying that's what Bruce Pearl is doing, but man, you can't do the SEC chant just yet. We can't have a coach doing it after the Sweet 16 when you have to play another Big 10 team. 

Look, Auburn vs Michigan State is going to be AWESOME. It's hard to not think that about any of the Elite Eight games. But this game should feature the single most amount of shit talking, the coaching style mismatch, Auburn being this team that wants to make it as chaotic as possible. You got the story of Izzo trying to get back to the Final Four with this roster that is nowhere near his most talented and Pearl trying to finish off the season as the No. 1 overall seed. Just the two press conferences are perfect summaries of these teams.