By Ian Casselberry on

ESPN college basketball analyst Dan Dakich has been clashing with Michigan State fans in recent weeks on Twitter, and that tension came to a head Tuesday night in East Lansing during the Spartans’ 74-66 victory over Ohio State.

What particularly set Spartans fans off was a tweet saying Michigan State students attend that school because they couldn’t get into the University of Michigan. The tweet has since been deleted, but as typically happens, someone screen capped it for all to see.

As you would surely expect, that crack didn’t go over very well with Spartans fans and Dakich continued trolling them on Twitter, repeating the phrase “Nobody whines like Sparty.”

Dakich was at Breslin Center Tuesday night to call the Michigan State-Ohio State basketball game and heard plenty of boos and chants from Spartans fans. Perhaps the ugliest of the jeers was “We hate Dakich.”

https://twitter.com/ofcadamwalters/status/831697417930153984

Following the game, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo began his press conference by addressing the matter with Dakich. At first, Izzo didn’t like that the Spartans student section, nicknamed “The Izzone,” was going after the ESPN analyst so fiercely. He’s talked to students before about their behavior and initially thought the Dakich chants warranted a word or two. But then he found out about the tweets that Dakich had been trading with Spartans fans.

“If I would’ve known that before the game, I would’ve embarrassed myself almost as much as he embarrassed himself, and I would’ve led the chants,” Izzo said, via Spartan Nation. “Because calling us whiners and that is kind of unprofessional classy broadcasters. George Blaha and everybody else wouldn’t even think to do something like that on TV. But saying our students couldn’t get in there, and he’s doing games for Michigan when his son’s there? That is a disappointment, and that is ridiculous.”

You can see Izzo’s full remarks in the following video.

Izzo went on to say that “Danny owes our fans and our students an apology,” but doesn’t expect to get it. The coach also couldn’t resist pointing out that Dakich’s son Andrew currently plays at Michigan, which may have been a factor in the remarks. Will Dakich at least apologize on his radio show? That doesn’t seem like his move, and more than likely, he’s enjoying the attention for this.

But maybe Dakich will apologize to Izzo privately, since the coach addressed the remarks during his post-game press conference. Considering the public nature of his remarks, doing so for everyone to see would be fair.

If Dakich doesn’t say anything, however, and he returns to East Lansing for another Spartans game this season, perhaps we’ll have the entertaining spectacle of Izzo joining The Izzone with some anti-Dakich chants.

[Larry Brown Sports]

About Ian Casselberry

Ian is a writer, editor, and podcaster. You can find his work at Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He's written for Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation.

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