No. 1 Michigan State is willing to sacrifice for a special season

In 2019, that means deleting Twitter

You might choose to give up red meat for Lent. A boxer might pass on, uh, hanky-panky before a fight.

Top-ranked Michigan State is making a different kind of sacrifice as it embarks on the college basketball season, beginning Tuesday night against No. 2 Kentucky in the Champions Classic.

Want to guess what it is? Keep in mind, this is 2019.

“We had a team meeting,” forward Xavier Tillman said. “We figured: OK, in order to reach our goal to win a national championship, we have to sacrifice something that means a lot to everybody.”

Bye-bye, Twitter. You’ve been blocked.

“The hope, the goal, is to delete it off our phones,” Tillman said. “If we catch you liking a photo or retweeting, it’s gonna be bad.”

The idea: Care less about what @sparty4life thinks about your game. And more about what your coaches and teammates do. Coach Tom Izzo ?s this idea. It’s very on-brand considering Izzo has no social media presence and is forever harping on the “distractions” affecting today’s players.

“I’m very happy, but they have all these other things, Snapchat and ... what are the other ones?” he said. “Twitter is something. I don’t like when they read what other people say because I think that screws up kids. What kids have to go through now ... before, it was beat the hell out of people and play hard.”

No, this is not a football coach talking.

This is a basketball coach who emphasizes toughness and thinks he might have the right combination of players to produce a special season. The Big

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