in NCAA B Articles

Izzo is the man

It’s hard to feel sorry for Tom Izzo.

All Izzo has done since becoming the head coach of the Michigan State Spartans basketball team in 1995 is take it to eight straight NCAA Tournaments, four times reaching the Final Four and winning it all in 2000. But Izzo and everyone else in East Lansing have a right to grouse this year. Schedule makers handed the Spartans a January gauntlet of Big Ten matchups that would have made Lysander himself quake in his boots: road games at Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio State and Michigan, with a pair of home games versus Indiana and Iowa thrown in for good measure. All in the space of three weeks.

Izzo warned MSU supporters earlier this season that the Spartans could have trouble getting out of the gate. And so it came to pass. They fell 60-50 to the Fighting Illini (ranked No. 6 at the time), then dropped an embarrassing 82-63 decision to the No. 24 Badgers to start the Big Ten season at 0-2 straight up and against the spread.

Time to panic? Not quite yet. The ship was righted three days later at the Breslin Center, courtesy of an 87-73 win over the No. 8 Hoosiers – another team with a killer schedule. Then came Sunday afternoon’s Rumble in Columbus, a thrilling 62-59 win over the No. 16 Buckeyes in double overtime to even MSU’s conference record at 2-2. The Spartans also bagged their second Big Ten cover as 5 ½-point underdogs.

Having to endure such a grueling stretch may come back to haunt MSU, but this is a team that’s used to tough competition. Izzo loves to test his players during the non-conference portion of the campaign. Well before the Spartans began their tiptoe through the Big Ten minefield, they faced three Top 10 teams. The Maui Invitational saw Michigan State lose to Gonzaga in triple overtime, then come back the next day to down Arizona, this time with only one extra frame required. That win kicked off an 11-game streak for the Spartans, which included Boston College among the victims.

Izzo’s best players have been outstanding in the first half of the season. Senior guard Maurice Ager leads the team with 20.9 points per game, fellow Wooden Award candidate Paul Davis is dominating at center with 18.5 points and 9.9 rebounds per contest, and former McDonald's All-American guard Shannon Brown has built on last year’s solid Tournament performance with 17.8 points per game. Throw in promising sophomore point guard Drew Neitzel, and the Spartans have four players that most coaches would give a body part or two to have on their team.

The question going forward will be whether Izzo’s bench is strong enough to get the Spartans through the rest of the winter. His fearsome foursome is logging heavy minutes, especially now that Big Ten play is underway. Even going through two overtimes against Ohio State (with Ager shooting an uncharacteristic 1-for-5) didn’t prevent Izzo from sticking to a six-man rotation. Adding to the fatigue factor is two-sport athlete Matt Trannon’s new role as the fifth starter, joining the team in December after a full 11-game campaign as a Spartans wide receiver.

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