Izzo, Spartans continue their marathon dance
Dispatches from the long March, Day 4
Even the most casual remote-control flipper had plenty of chances to watch Michigan State lose basketball games this season, and plenty of reasons to doubt.
There was the overtime loss at Iowa in which the Spartans had a 13-point lead with 83 seconds left in regulation. There was the 18-point loss to Notre Dame, the 10-pointer to Ohio State in the Big Ten tournament. They lost 12 games in all. Compared to their Michigan State predecessors, they were unknown soldiers, not even particularly good on the boards anymore, and it seemed more of a trend than a blip. In 2021 they were outscored by their opponents and still got a No. 11 seed, where they took a come-from-ahead loss to UCLA during the ignominy of a First Four game.
But now we clean up after another demolition derby of a first tournament weekend, in which there are 16 slots for 68 roulette balls, and 52 others clatter to the floor. Eight Big Ten teams were in the rack, and yet only Michigan State is standing, a No. 7 seed that beat USC on Friday and knocked off No. 2 seed Marquette on Sunday, 69-60.
It’s the 16th time that a team coached by Tom Izzo beat a higher-seeded team in the tournament, and the 15th Final 16 appearance. Izzo’s Spartans are 24-7 on Saturday-Sunday games, or other games with one day’s rest. Except those days aren’t restful. They’re crammed with practice, a double shot of video, a media session and a lot of data to digest, as well as several Uber Eats deliveries. There’s also rest and re-hydration. Izzo handles that turnaround as well as anyone who’s ever coached in the current format (until the mid-60s, you played tournament games on Friday and Saturday nights). Which is why you don’t flip away from the Spartans. This program is squarely in the frontal lobe of anyone on its schedule, and there’s never been a coach who didn’t groan audibly when the bracket matched his team up with Izzo’s.
Sunday was like so many of those games. Michigan State simply had more bounce, played with less hesitation, and played a chesty type of defense that the Eagles rarely saw in the Big East. Don’t be confused; the Big East is excellent, with three teams still playing. But Michigan State is one of the few programs left where muscular purpose will earn you playing time more quickly than a 3-point stroke. After all, the school is building a new football facility, and it is naming it after the basketball coach.
The tipoff came right after, well, tipoff. On the first possession, Marquette’s Stevie Mitchell stole the ball from A.J. Hoggard and streaked in for a layup. The Spartans cleared their throats and scored the next 11 points, and Marquette coach Shaka Smart had to call time out before his team scored again.
“We’ve shown this before but not as long,” said Tyson Walker, who gradually took command of this game. Tyler Kolek, Marquette’s Big East Player of the Year, was taken hostage as well. He ran into foul trouble and wound up with seven points and six turnovers. Michigan State, which ranked sixth in 3-point percentage even though it rarely goes for the bomb, shot 2-for-16 from deep, yet still won.
So why is the rest of the Big Ten packing up the basketballs, along with every ACC team except Miami and every Pac-12 team except UCLA? The conference has excellent fan support, the monolithic Big Ten network, and considerable tradition.
Well, NCAA tournament results aren’t the best way to judge leagues and, particularly, coaches. Another tournament collapse by Purdue is not necessarily an indictment of coach Matt Painter. You might just as easily look at this deeply flawed team and the way it ran away with the Big Ten regular season and also won its tournament and captured a No. 1 seed and say that Painter was nothing less than a basketball Galileo. But March is where the hardware is distributed and where people who wouldn’t know Phog Allen from Foghat pay attention. Therefore, reputations are made here, and unmade.
As far as the results go, you can base Michigan State’s success on the theory that it has continuity and identity. That identity happens to fit what is needed in March. The Spartans always show athleticism and toughness. They have no magical scorers; their best recent pro is Draymod Green. But they defend, inside and outside, and they play to the end.
Indiana, Illinois and Purdue all faded in their losses. Iowa had the type of shooting eyes that you need these days, but it had the misfortune of playing Auburn in Birmingham. Maryland, in the second round, played Alabama on that same court. The teams that thrived near the end of the season were Penn State and Northwestern, with senior playmakers, but their seeds brought them to quick proximity to Texas and UCLA. They pressed those favorites to the end, but still lost.
Izzo turned 68 during the season. This was his 28th season as head coach. He had to deal with the February shootings, just as he had to deal, by school association, with the Larry Nassar scandal. He has seen younger men like Jay Wright leave college basketball, as Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams and now Jim Boeheim have, worn down by time and the transfer portal, and wary of the implications of NIL and the collectives.
He has reacted by clinging harder to the profession that has consumed him. During a time out Friday, he got so worked up that he snapped a whiteboard in two. Just as typically, he admitted that he disliked seeing himself do things like that, or to go after his own players with eye-bulging fury. Yet he also said a player’s father told him not to worry about optics. “Coach my son,” the dad said. So Izzo will, and since he doesn’t partake in social media, he won’t see those videos.
Izzo is a guy who didn’t get married until he was 37, whose idea of a first date with his wife Lupe was a Michigan State-Purdue game. “Good thing we won,” he said. As The Athletic pointed out in a recent profile, Izzo often startles folks in East Lansing who see him standing in a grocery line, like the everyday worker and unlike a guy pulling down $6 million annually. But when you grow up in Iron Mountain, Mich. and you work in your dad’s shoe repair store, you get over yourself quickly.
Michigan State plays Kansas State in the regional semifinal game Friday in Madison Square Garden. “It’s where we belong,” said Mady Sissoko, a 6-foot-9 junior who did not transfer in from somewhere else. Instead he played 4.5 minutes a game and then 5.5, growing in the weight room, learning the game. On Sunday he kept stopping Marquette in the lane, kept getting rebounds. He is part of what keeps Tom Izzo going, and what keeps him staying, too.
Otherwise:
Best team performance: Xavier had 19 baskets in the first half of its trouble-free, 84-73 win over Pittsburgh, and 17 of them were assisted. Adam Kunkel hit his first five 3-pointers. Center Jack Nunge scored 18 and was a masterful help defender.
Best individual: Florida Atlantic’s Johnel Davis was necessarily brilliant in a win over Fairleigh Dickinson, providing 29 points, 12 rebounds. five rebounds and five steals in 35 minutes. No one ever went 25-10-5-5 in a tournament game before. The Owls’ first NCAA appearance has now extended to the Final 16, where they play Tennessee next.
Best comeback: Isaiah Wong needed to show people why he was the ACC Player of the Year. He was 1 for 10 in Miami’s win over Drake Friday, but he poured in 28 as the Hurricanes dispatched Indiana Sunday, 85--69.
Best attention to detail: Creighton’s impressive 85-76 win over Baylor featured a 22-for-22 team performance at the free throw line, including10-for-10 from Ryan Nembhard, who scored 30.
Biggest injury: Alex Decas left Sunday’s game with a back injury, and St. Mary’s spine collapsed without its leading scorer. Connecticut won, 70-55, and got 24 points from brutish center Adama Sanogo, who scored 52 points in 52 minutes for the weekend.
Toughest ending: TCU was in control of Gonzaga in the first half, but Drew Timme began doing his Nikola Jokic imitation in front of the Denver crowd, and the Horned Frogs lost, 84-81. But they should take heart. The last time one of TCU’s seasons was ended by Bulldogs, the score was 65-7.