Tom Izzo has had enough.

He's fed up with having his guards walk the ball up court. Fed up with worrying about fatigue. Fed up with stressing over injuries.

He's ready to take the leashes off his athletes and let them run the floor.

"That is the way I'm gonna coach from now on," the MSU basketball head coach said. "I'm so tired about worrying who's healthy, and who's hurt, and who's sick, and who can practice and who can't practice.

"So if we spill it all and we spend it in 30 minutes or 20 minutes or 40 minutes, we're gonna start running again."

Avid followers of the Green and White are accustomed to watching quick-thinking point guards push the ball upcourt while high-flying swingmen run the floor and finish at the basket. And they've grown familiar with hard-nosed defenders picking up their assignments at half court and not giving an inch of breathing room.

But a lack of backcourt depth led Izzo to put the brakes on the Spartans' 2006-07 rendition, slowing the team's attack on both ends. As a result, MSU is averaging 67.7 points per game — eighth in the Big Ten. To make matters worse, freshman forward Raymar Morgan and sophomore guard Maurice Joseph suffered lower leg injuries in December, and each missed about a month.

"What I thought at the beginning of the year is that we'd run off missed baskets, maybe not as much off makes," Izzo said. "Then it went down to, 'Walk off miss or makes.' And then by the middle of December it was, 'Crawl after misses and don't even come up the floor after a make.'"

Izzo's strategy to slow things down worked — the Spartans cruised through their nonconference schedule with only two losses, and most of the roster suffered minimal fatigue. But he didn't enjoy the "crawling" style the Spartans were forced to play.

"It accomplished its goal — we were 13-2, and I wouldn't have guessed that with (Joseph and Morgan) healthy," Izzo said. "… What we did worked for what we had to get done.

"It's a passive, uneventful style that I really have no interest in playing."

The second half of MSU's 63-57 win over Illinois on Sunday may be a sign of things to come. The Spartans came out of the locker room with an intensity that was absent throughout the first half of the season.

"It was fun last game, especially in the second half," junior guard Drew Neitzel said. "We just picked up full-court, and pressured and looked to run a little bit more. You're kind of seeing our potential.

"(Izzo) is just kinda saying 'Screw it.' We're just going to leave everything that we have out there, and not worry about guys wearing out."

There was Marquise Gray scooping up a loose ball to ignite a 3-on-1 fast break, then finishing with an alley-oop slam on the other end.

There was Travis Walton playing chest-to-chest defense on Illinois' guards, forcing bad passes and traveling calls, then punctuating each defensive stop with an excited flex toward the crowd.

There was Neitzel pulling up for a long jumper early in the shot clock, brushing off the consequences of a missed attempt.

And there was the Breslin Center crowd, boisterous and re-energized by the Spartans' rekindled full-court vigor.

Walton, a sophom ore guard who excels on defense, said he enjoys dictating an opponents' pace.

"That's great," Walton said. "It's like creating the tempo of the point guards, when you get up into him and make him do what you want him to do."

An up-tempo approach will take its toll. Neitzel and Walton were on the floor for 73 combined minutes against Illinois. As a result, both had to take it easy in practice the following day.

"Neitzel and Walton were pretty spent," Izzo said.

But a combination of lighter practices, healthy eating and young legs should allow the pair to remain effective.

"They're 20 years old," Izzo said. "I don't want to make (fatigue) a bigger deal than it is."

Izzo's new approach was evident during Wednesday evening's practice, when he addressed the media regarding freshman wing Isaiah Dahlman's recent setback (Dahlman will miss at least a week with a foot injury).

He seemed optimistic and unaffected — a stark contrast from when he announced Morgan's injury, shaking his head and sighing, "That's not what we needed."

Time will tell if Izzo can maintain his current frame of mind. But he certainly appears excited to get back to a more aggressive game plan.

"It's the system I know," Izzo said, "and it's the system the players want to play."