Tom Izzo: Michigan State basketball will ‘reap benefits quickly’ from tough scheduling

EAST LANSING – Bucky McMillan brought his ornery Bulldogs to Breslin Center on Tuesday night looking for far more than a payday for Samford’s athletic department.

He wanted a win, like every coach and competitor at every level does. But the architect of the physical and high-intensity “Bucky Ball” system also needed to learn some things about his players on a multitude of fronts, regardless of the outcome.

Sound familiar? It should. It’s a blueprint Tom Izzo has used for 30 years as Michigan State basketball’s coach.

“We got the game, but it was difficult,” McMillan said after Samford fought like a pack of junkyard dogs in the Spartans’ eventual 83-75 win. “It’s difficult to schedule these days with all the analytics, so it kind of takes a coach that isn’t afraid to play. And that’s Coach Izzo – he’s not afraid to play anybody.”

Anyone, anytime, anyplace. It’s a phrase deeply baked in MSU’s DNA under Izzo. But those three words all have an end result in mind: Playing in March, in the NCAA tournament, surviving and advancing to the Final Four.

Izzo knows games against tough opponents sharpen his team for Big Ten play as well wherever they’re set to play. See going on the road to face Wright State in late 1999, losing there without Mateen Cleaves, and then going 13-3 to win a third straight regular-season conference crown and going unbeaten in capturing both the league tournament title and Izzo’s lone national championship.

In some ways, mixed among the visible star-power brands of college basketball, Izzo’s early November and December schedules always have had better-than-anticipated matchups. But in recent years, he said he has started trying to refocus those home games against higher level competition such as James Madison last year and Samford on Tuesday.

“What we tried to do this year – we got a couple more coming up – I never was happy with our ranking at the end, because I always thought we played a tough schedule,” Izzo said of why…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/tom-izzo-michigan-state-basketball-111121290.html

Author : Detroit Free Press

Publish date : 2024-11-21 11:11:00

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