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Mens basketball, hockey reminicse about No. 1 ranking

January 8, 2001

Tom Izzo was starting to wonder if he was cut out for his job.

The long-time Spartan basketball assistant was in his first season as MSU’s head coach in 1995 and the Breslin Student Events Center was only half-full for home games.

Fans were trying to figure out if he was the team’s problem or the answer after a losing streak dropped MSU’s record down to .500.

In the middle of Sunday morning practice, Izzo was looking at the faces of his players, searching for a way out of MSU’s slump when he heard somebody pounding on the Breslin Center door.

The coach scaled the steps of the arena racking his mind for someone who would have the audacity to disrupt his practice.

And there was the culprit.

The winningest coach in college hockey history, Ron Mason, peering through the glass door and into the concourse.

Mason had been at MSU for 17 years, almost longer than Izzo had been out of college. He had already brought a national title back to East Lansing and had turned the MSU program into a national powerhouse.

Coincidentally, those were the two accomplishments at the top of Izzo’s list of goals.

The hockey coach had dropped by to tell the new basketball coach that he saw the right things happening and was confident Izzo would turn the basketball program around. It was a show of support that Izzo said he’ll remember until the day he dies.

Since then, Izzo has won three straight Big Ten titles and a national championship of his own.

And, late last month, MSU became the first college ever to have the nation’s top-ranked basketball and hockey teams at the same time.

“We’re one school and we do pull for each other,” Mason said. “There are no jealousies here, we want to see the other teams win. Football and basketball are the programs that people see nationally and the success they have helps us because we get more publicity.”

The closest any other school has come to having two No. 1 teams at the same time is the Spartans’ rivals to the east, the University of Michigan, who almost accomplished it in 1992. The Wolverine hockey team was ranked No. 1 while the basketball team topped the preseason polls.

However, by the time the basketball season started, U-M’s hockey team had fallen from its perch.

The MSU basketball team is expected to drop from its No. 1 ranking after Indiana forward Kirk Haston’s buzzer-beating three-pointer beat the Spartans 59-58 in Bloomington, Ind., on Sunday.

Izzo said that having two top-ranked teams is “a very big deal.”

“It’s almost taken for granted and it’s a shame. To have two teams at the same school rated like this is really something special that we probably don’t want to make too big of a deal about. And yet I sit there and say, ‘When does this ever happen?’” Izzo said. “We know how hard they have to work to be No. 1 and they know how hard we have to work to be No. 1.”

The two coaches have become good friends and have counseled each other at times.

“We chat back and forth, but I don’t know much about basketball and Tom probably doesn’t know much about hockey,” Mason said. “Coaches always face the same types of problems and sometimes we can help each other just by talking about things.”

Izzo called his relationship with Mason “phenomenal.”

“Ron cares about our program and I think (Mason’s support) is a big plus, because I call him to ask him how to handle this win streak and how to handle the (No.1) rating,” Izzo said. “He’s really been a mentor to me.”

MSU Athletics Director Clarence Underwood has preached unity in the department since he took his post a year ago, and the basketball and hockey teams have taken that notion to heart.

Basketball senior forward Andre Hutson said hockey and basketball players often work out together during summer conditioning.

“I think for me personally I have a pretty good relationship with the hockey players. There’s been times in the summers where we’ll work out two or three times a week together. Our strength trainers split it up where a basketball and a hockey player will work out together.”

Former MSU basketball point guard Mateen Cleaves even helped Mason recruit freshman center Jeremy Jackson out of Los Angeles last year.

“We took Jeremy over there to basketball and he knew who Mateen was,” Mason said. “Mateen talked to him one-on-one and I think convinced him that Michigan State is a great place.”

Players from both teams agreed that support from other athletes, as well as fans, has been crucial to MSU building premier programs.

“For the most part I think all the athletes on this campus stick together and support each other,” Hutson said. “I think that’s very important.”

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