Grit is a word thrown around the MSU men’s basketball team
Grit, a mental toughness and tenacity Izzo said this team has struggled to develop with MSU’s first nine games. He said the team’s mental grit might have been suffering because of the long travel and minimal practice,
While considered to be somewhat uncoachable, Izzo said he can coach grit, and his next challenge is pushing player’s buttons to get them to perform.
“It might be because they’re still tired, but if they are, so be it,” Izzo said. “Sooner or later you have to look in the mirror, it gets personal. You’re one-on-one with a guy late in the game, you can’t give up a layup. It gets personal. So we have to coach that a little bit.”
Izzo attributed the team’s effort and style of play as
“I just think that we’re raised to get a trophy for everything and we’re raised to always have another game,” Izzo said. “That’s not a good mentality. As they say, you should play each game like it’s your last and that’s not what they’ve done. It’s hard. I am seeing that, and I think a lot of other coaches are seeing that, and I don’t think it’s good for the players.”
While Izzo said he plans on coaching mental toughness, fifth-year senior Eron Harris and highly-acclaimed team leader junior Lourawls “Tum Tum” Nairn Jr. said this mental roadblock for the team comes with accountability.
“It’s just a decision you’ve got to make,” Harris said. “We have to go over 100 (percent) right now because we are missing our guys.”
After a slim four-point victory against Oral Roberts Saturday night, Nairn showed clear frustration with the team’s inability to dominate and control the game. The Golden Eagles, now 1-7 on the year, have had losses to Oakland University by 28 points, Tulsa by 14, Montana by 21 and
“We just have to play tougher,” Nairn said. “We got to have grit and play with grit and play with passion.”
While MSU was playing its first game without leading scorer and rebounder, freshman forward Miles Bridges, most of the frustration came from mental execution, not physical ability.
Stunted by injuries, MSU has had to battle more on the glass to make up for its lack of size, Izzo said.
“If you saw my board, you’d see three key things today: limit our unforced turnovers, attack the defensive boards so we don’t give up so many second-chance points and stop the baseline out of bounds plays which have been a problem,” Izzo said. “We’ve given up more this year than we did all last year after eight games. They’ve got one or two on us there, but we did a better job on the turnovers and we didn’t do a good job on the boards.”
While upperclassman leadership is frustrated with the team’s toughness, the freshman class, in
“I feel like we played hard, we could’ve played a little better and a little tougher but we got the job done,” Ward said. “I feel like my teammates contributed and we got the result.”
While Izzo said the team lacks grit, the general team consensus is it has to play tougher and harder.
“Most definitely, there is a lot of things to improve on,” Winston said. “Winning is better no matter what and we will take it at any point. There are a lot of things that we have to do better and with teams like this we should be doing a lot of things better.“
MSU’s next chance to find a way around its mental roadblock is Dec. 6 at home against Youngstown State University. The Penguins match MSU’s record on the year at 5-4 overall.
“Champions aren’t made by finesse,” Izzo said. “Champions are made by grit.”
Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
