EAST LANSING — Instead of giving a pre-game talk to his roster, Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo played a video that the team produced in recent years called “Passion.”

The film has clips throughout Spartan basketball history, featuring words from legends of the school like Magic Johnson and Mateen Cleaves. Rather than try to inspire MSU with a speech for its first challenge of the 2025-26 season against a highly-touted Arkansas team coming to Breslin Center, he wanted ex-players to send the message aided by just a few words of his own.

“I said ‘This is their chance,’” Izzo said postgame Saturday night. “You have games like this so that you get your chance to develop your own identity and your own legacy.”

The No. 22 Spartans had been hungry for their chance to knock off the No.

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