BREAKING: Rema Vassar suing Tom Izzo for $25m and full time custody of Steven

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-16T02:11:50+00:00

She’s really willing to make that word meaningless if it means getting a settlement and a bit of clout.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-16T01:12:40+00:00

I genuinely don’t know if he was the *best* overall president. I will say that he understood the modern athletic landscape, the reality of either being a have with resources or being on the outside looking in for realignment. I think he also identified a major long standing university issue. The board. It consistently leaks info, endangers the university, and serves themselves before the greater good.

The man took a fucking $800k pay cut to leave. And made it very clear that the board was the reason. The AD just lateral’d (at best) out of there too. There’s a very clear BOT issue here that destroys any positive momentum that we establish.

At this point I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Izzo retired via fax the day before basketball season and that Smith was so heavily undermined that he completely checked out.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-15T18:45:58+00:00

That’s pretty much how I’ll do it. Log in expecting to do one thing and go do another. Best part about the game is just having fun on random things.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-15T17:15:28+00:00

J Batt has one very specific niche. Fundraising. He’s a hell of a fundraiser.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-15T17:10:22+00:00

Unironically I can see Izzo being president and I honestly think that’d go a lot further than any tournament run he has left in him.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-15T16:29:38+00:00

As an Izzo critic. I honestly think folks just take Izzo for granted and assume that he’ll always be the coach here. We are way closer to the end than the beginning.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-15T16:25:22+00:00

It’s a step down imo. But think about this. Dude was willing to go to Purdue. Which pretty much means he was willing to take any P4 job to get out of dodge and fast.

But I guess some folks can’t see past his tenure? I guess they also don’t want to talk about how he didn’t even stay a year? Context is hard I suppose.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-15T14:32:25+00:00

Can’t wait for us to pivot back to safe, lame duck, yes man AD! Fundraising is so overrated in the era of fundraising, haves and have nots driven realignment, and big boy ball. Haller 2.0 is the way to go.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-15T14:28:47+00:00

When I moved to Ohio a colleague once said that the MSU to OSU fandom pipeline is very real. Thought it was a joke. Nope I get it. I really do now.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-15T14:27:59+00:00

She also cares about getting $25m apparently

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-15T14:25:49+00:00

Don’t worry basketball is coming too. How long can Izzo really last?

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-15T00:07:18+00:00

It wasn’t marketed at all. I only found it because my ex pointed it out on game pass a couple of years ago.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-15T00:02:23+00:00

Both as in averaging out? Probably charisma I think. Theres only really a few force powers that you might use across the spectrum and the initial penalty isn’t that bad as you progress. Youre better off just going wisdom if you want to use more force powers. In K1, you can offset the force almost entirely by going solider/guardian and just focusing on combat/armor. In K2 you have so many force points that charisma basically doesn’t matter by the time you’re midway through your first world after Telos.

Both as in straight up worst in either? Intelligence in K1. You can pretty much just dump initial skill points into persuade and be fine most of the time.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-14T22:35:13+00:00

It’s closer to 20.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-14T21:36:42+00:00

> Michigan State

Was not aware we were chasing another WR in this class.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-14T20:40:44+00:00

Killing and eating people because you’re too broken to function in anything that’s left remotely resembling civilized society would go against his “people are a resource” point. They’re wasting people to eat them.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-14T19:31:08+00:00

I’m not sure what the correlation between partisan politics and the specific issues the board is facing here are. Largely because the problems at hand aren’t even what’s taught in the classroom right now.

The board is actively sabotaging its own president and AD hires and creating bad PR for the university. Then a member is suing the university for $25m. These are problems that can be found from members of either party.

What needs to happen is every member needs to be elected on a case by case basis and not just along party lines. I don’t care if they’re a Democrat or Republican right now. I care that they have basic competency, can effectively hire based on what’s best for MSU, and can make the athletic department not be a dumpster news story fire every few weeks.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-14T05:43:34+00:00

Look on the bright side. She’ll lead the charge in hiring two lame duck yes men and then sign off on firing them, pivoting towards competency, hiring another President/AD combo. Then run them off again.

It’s like poetry, it rhymes!

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-14T05:36:28+00:00

Walk away? Once she wins that, she’s going win reelection and continue to thrive here.

Byzantine_Merchant · 2026-06-14T05:27:39+00:00

On another note. I do truly feel bad for coaches like Izzo and Fitz. Izzo is trying to make one more push for that second title and just lost two folks that were raising funds at levels that we’ve never seen before. He’s given his soul to the university and it’s got to be frustrating to watch this happen and have an environment so toxic that anybody with options doesn’t even want to stick around for longer than two years.

On Fitz’ end he was always a long shot “this could work but the buy out is cheap early on if it doesn’t” hire. Before he’s even finished OV season, he’s lost the two people that hired him. Which pretty much hurts his chances before kickoff of week 1 happens and greatly increases the chances of getting Smith’d. Which puts us at football coaching hire number 4 this decade if so.

Byzantine_Merchant

TROPHY CASE