Izzo's Best Coaching Job: Quieting Critics

INDIANAPOLIS -- On his tippy toes, he might be 5-10, very easy to lose in the enormity of a football stadium where faces look like matrix dots and crowd noise drifts to the ozone. But no one strikes a larger pose in the Midwest today than Tom Izzo, public defender of the Big Ten's battered self-esteem. If trends and hipness start on both coasts in America, college basketball in the heartland also has been taking on an irrelevant, plodding look, to the point I stopped watching.

And I live in Chicago.

Then came the irked intruder, Izzo, who admittedly is tiring of Digger Phelps, Dick Vitale and the bullhorn campaign that has been anointing the Big East as the greatest conference ever and downgrading the Big Ten into something between a mid-major and YMCA league. Hearing that Michigan State would be served as Sunday brunch for Louisville and the $2,000-suit mystique of Rick Pitino, Izzo spent the eve of the Midwest Regional final launching an impassioned defense of his conference. First, he said the Big Ten hasn't had favorable matchups in this NCAA tournament, which could have been perceived as sour grapes.

"I think sometimes, we anoint a league,'' said Izzo, referring to the Big East. "Sometimes, matchups at this tournament in general for everybody, every year, can determine who wins and loses. Certain teams don't play as well against certain teams. For some reason, you think of Louisville, you think of racehorse basketball. I think we've averaged, like, two points less than them this season. So I'm giving my normal hurrah for the Big Ten because I think too many people, especially some on TV, have abused it.

"I think our conference, top to bottom, is also one of the best in the country. I really do. And I think sometimes, people evaluate that on how many points you score or what goes on or what perception you have. And I don't agree with that.''

When someone challenged him, Izzo fired back. "`When you look at some of these other leagues, if somebody has a couple teams out (of the NCAAs), how do I say this without starting controversy, my favorite subject?'' he said. "You know, we've been in four Final Fours in 10 years. Three of them, we've had two Big Ten teams in it. I didn't hear anybody saying how great the Big Ten was. Case closed.''

His grand speech could have backfired and perpetuated the Big Ten's misery. Instead, it will be remembered for motivating his team to heights not thought possible this March. Rather than perish like the other league clunkers, Michigan State delivered the most fundamentally sound performance of the tournament, using Izzo's time-proven formula of defense, rebounding, offensive balance and toughness to disorient Louisville and eliminate a Big East powerhouse perceived by many -- myself included -- as the national championship favorite.

This could be remembered as a watershed game in the industry. It could lead Pitino to Arizona after Louisville's second straight defeat in the Elite Eight. And it could lead Izzo to Kentucky, which is ready to make him the highest-paid coach in the college game. But first, Izzo is headed to Detroit, to another football stadium where Michigan State wll be the home team in a 72,000-seat configuration and trying to inject joy into a blighted, unemployment-wracked ghost town.

Take that, Big East.

Clearly in his Izzone after the 64-52 romp, he could have gloated, sure. But it's not his style. His statement was left on the court inside Lucas Oil Stadium, where his high-efficiency, high-energy team held the potent Cardinals to their second-lowest point total this season. Remember what we said about Terrence Williams being the best all-around player in the tournament? Scratch that. The Louisville stud was held to five points on 1-of-7 shooting against furious, feisty man-to-man defense while a roulette wheel of MSU weapons -- none bigger than center Goran Suton, who introduced the Final Four to his native Bosnia with 19 points and 10 rebounds -- took turns demoralizing the overall No. 1 seed. Leading this team to the Final Four might be Izzo's finest piece of work, not that he'll say so.

"You don't think I'm going to sit here and rip 'em, do you?'' he said of the Big Ten critics. "I got more class than that. You know, I understand the whole thing. Louisville's a very, very good team. Last year everybody said -- Bobby Knight picked Pittsburgh, and I was saying to myself, me, too. I loved the way Pittsburgh was playing. They played great. Just happened on that day, we were able to beat 'em. I must admit, though, we've been fighting all year for some credibility. I don't know if this does it or not, but it was definitely a big start.''


Oh, this does it, all right, at least bringing renewed credibility for Izzo and his program. When Vitale, Phelps and the boys are critical of the Big Ten, they should leave Michigan State out of the equation and realize Izzo has reached the Final Four five times in the last 11 years, more than any program in that span, and now is 5-1 in regional finals. In pulling it off, he reconfirmed his place among the best coaches in the college game and gave the Final Four an unlikely angle: Michigan State playing 90 miles from campus, in Detroit's Ford Field. It's the first time in 15 years, since Duke bussed over to Charlotte, that a team will play a national semifinal in its home state. But Duke staying in North Carolina hardly carries the symbolism of the Spartans playing in a dying city that needs hope and life.

All season, Izzo has emphasized the Ford Field angle. He talked about it with his players before the game. Now, their dream has arrived, with a winnable matchup against Connecticut ahead on Saturday evening. "It's as big a win as our school has had because we're going to Detroit, and that's been a dream and a goal since they announced where the Final Four was in 2009," Izzo said.

He and his players are ready to embrace the bigger meaning of the host site. "It's been a tough time. But our state has been hit maybe as hard as anybody's,'' Izzo said of Michigan's auto-based economy. "I'm just hoping we're a silver lining in what's been a bit of a cloudy year for us. I'm hoping that we're the sunshine, I'm hoping we're something to embrace, be involved with, and I hope they all support us because, you know, I haven't even had time to think about UConn. But they got a guy that is fairly big (7-3 Hasheem Thabeet) and does a pretty good job, and a coach (Jim Calhoun) that's fairly ornery and does a pretty good job. So it should be one helluva game.''

Concurring with Izzo was a familiar face in the sea of green.

"Detroit needs something, Michigan needs something to feel good about," said Magic Johnson, wearing his Michigan State garb in the 30th-year anniversary since his epic NCAA title game against Larry Bird. "Right now, the whole state is feeling good about this Michigan State team."

There is this matter of Kentucky, though. Arguably the most popular guy in the state -- outside University of Michigan precincts, that is -- Izzo will have to decide whether he wants to be a lifer in East Lansing or try another challenge. He has rejected NBA overtures, most recently from the Atlanta Hawks and Chicago Bulls, but Kentucky will come at him hard. And given the chance to deny interest, he didn't. "I don't think there's a guy on this planet that would ever say he's not going anywhere, not doing anything," Izzo said Saturday. "But at the same time, I've got so many goals and so many things I'd like to accomplish here yet. When Final Fours come up, Sweet 16s and Elite Eights, Michigan State's name is always in there. (A national title) is my ultimate goal right now. I've still got a lot of work to do to accomplish that. We've put a heck of a dent in it. But when you look at Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Duke, we're not at that level yet, and that's the level I'd like to get to."

As a friend of Tubby Smith, a coach couldn't flee Kentucky quickly enough, Izzo knows about the unrealistic expectations and insane pressures in Lexington. "It's a tough job because it's demanding and expectations are high,'' he said. "But I don't know if there's any job that can put more pressure on a person than he puts on himself if he's really good and he's really competitive and in that mold. I feel pressure at Michigan State, you know, to maintain or even grow from what we've done. At the same level, I did not like what happened to Tubby Smith personally. I just know that I'm happy he's at Minnesota, happy he's in the Big Ten, and sad that now we got to play against each other two, three times a year. It's harder to keep our friendship.''

He was kidding. For all his success, Izzo remains an affable, down-to-earth family guy who buys his own groceries and takes out the garbage. That doesn't mean he isn't a tough S.O.B. Take the War Drill. Upset after a loss in 2000, Izzo asked the Michigan State football coach at the time, Nick Saban, if he could borrow several sets of helmets and shoulder pads. Then he had his players put on the equipment and pound on each other. "We're going to learn how to hit somebody and get a rebound," he told them. To this day, Izzo uses the drill when he thinks his players are fragile. Sometimes, they use pads; sometimes, they don't.

"The war drill has no out of bounds,'' said guard Travis Walton, the team's defensive specialist. "They shoot the ball. It's five-on-five. Everybody just runs at each other, trying to get a little basketball. So we just go at each other, no fouls called. You're grabbing, you're pulling, you're scratching. Sometimes people get to bleeding and different things like that. When they get real tough, we put the football pads on."

Said Izzo: "It seems brutal and cruel, but there is a mission to the madness."

That mission was as apparent Sunday as a poke in the eye or an elbow to the chops. The Midwest may be soft and passe, but don't mess with Michigan State. The short man with the large heart will silence the biggest mouths out there.