MSU men’s head basketball coach Tom Izzo’s weekly roundtable with the media turned into an open forum Monday - a day after the Spartans earned a No. 10 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Izzo spent 46 minutes talking with the media, and even continued when he was told he had to get going.

“I’m intrigued by this,” said Izzo, whose squad will meet seventh-seeded N.C. State in the East regional at 12:15 p.m. Friday. “Let’s turn this around, let’s have some fun because I have to go back to work in a minute.”

It was at that moment when the session was distinguished from every other Monday roundtable. It was more than just a question-and-answer session, it was a conversation.

“Educate me, help me,” Izzo said. “Give me an education on it, ’cause I’ll probably do whatever it would take - how do I schedule?”

Izzo, who has made a name for himself by scheduling the toughest opponents possible, was jolted by the Selection Committee on Sunday and is looking to soak up as many different opinions on the subject as possible.

He claims his understanding of the committee’s criteria wasn’t followed Sunday.

“Tell me what they are,” he said. “Are how you finish the last 10 games a factor? Are they the strength of your schedule? Are injuries included or not? What are they? I don’t think they’re being real.

“I don’t see anyone giving us the factors except win all your games.”

The biggest point the reporters and Izzo disagreed on was just how close MSU was to missing the tournament. Izzo said he truly believes if Iowa would have earned an automatic bid by winning Sunday’s Big Ten Championship game, the Spartans would be on the outside of the bubble looking in.

Izzo said if MSU missed the tournament it would’ve been “detrimental” to his program. And that’s why in the heat of the moment he was so mad Sunday.

Today, Izzo realized MSU’s bracket isn’t that bad, despite being a No. 10 seed.

But that isn’t his point. Izzo is looking out for the future of his program, and wants a blueprint that is set in stone and can be followed each year. His biggest concern is scheduling, because it has to be set months before the season begins.

“When I scheduled the schedule I thought I had the best team I’ve had since I’ve been here,” said Izzo, who set the schedule before the departures of Jason Richardson and Zach Randolph.

The reason consistency from the Selection Committee is so important is because the benchmark for success has shifted to making the NCAA Tournament and not your success in it - a direct result of players entering the NBA Draft early.

Izzo and his program have an internal benchmark, which is an impression of the national one. And that is why scheduling, particularly nonconference schedules, is the loophole for some teams.

This year the committee made an effort to close that loophole by putting a bigger emphasis on teams’ conference records rather than how many big names they beat out of conference.

Despite this effort, and despite his dissatisfaction with the system, Izzo still is committed to giving the fans the best possible nonconference matchups.

“They don’t want to watch you play nobodies,” Izzo said. “That’s part of the monster that we built, but there are some positives to it too.”

While it’s true college basketball has mutated into a commercialized beast, it also has turned into a political beast. And the most manipulating that takes place comes when coaches are making their schedules.

Izzo asked the media for input, so here it is, a simple solution: Put someone else in charge of scheduling. The NCAA is not capable of doing this because it already has too much on its plate and is incompetent as it is.

Maybe each individual conference could handle the extra burden. Izzo and coaches who schedule powder-puff opponents in the nonconference have valid points as they look out for their best interests.

But if a third party handled the scheduling, it could give each team a mix of ranked and nonranked opponents, and in the end the most important party would walk away satisfied - the fans.

Justin A. Rice, a men’s basketball reporter, can be reached at ricejust@msu.edu.