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 MSUs 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 teams problem or the answer after a losing streak dropped MSUs 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 MSUs 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 Izzos 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 hell 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 nations top-ranked basketball and hockey teams at the same time.
Were 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-Ms hockey team had fallen from its perch.
The MSU basketball team is expected to drop from its No. 1 ranking after Indiana forward Kirk Hastons 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.
Its almost taken for granted and its a shame. To have two teams at the same school rated like this is really something special that we probably dont 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 dont know much about basketball and Tom probably doesnt 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 (Masons 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. Hes 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. Theres been times in the summers where well 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 thats very important.