Already in the first week of June, the summer had started with a nerve-wracking bang for Spartans fans when men’s basketball head coach Tom Izzo became the top candidate for the Cleveland Cavaliers’ head coaching job.

Every year, basketball coaches leave their current jobs for other opportunities, but not at MSU. Not at a school that has had a total of two men’s basketball coaches in the last 30-plus years.

So when it appeared Izzo was getting closer to moving on from East Lansing to try his hand at the NBA, it quickly became the biggest sports story at MSU since Izzo led the Spartans to their second national championship 10 years ago.

But after a long and agonizing nine days of rumors and speculation, Izzo announced his decision to stay at MSU for next season and the rest of his coaching career, turning a potential disaster for the Spartans into the best news any fan could have expected.

Arguably the best coach in basketball throughout the last decade, Izzo and his decision all but ensured MSU will remain a powerhouse program in college basketball for years to come.

Athletics Director Mark Hollis also proclaimed that MSU wanted to have the very best athletic program in the country — a bold statement.

At the press conference where he made the announcement, Izzo said he would return to the Spartans even hungrier and more determined than ever before, and the evidence of that already has shown.

Izzo and his staff recently received five verbal commitments from high-priority recruits in just 12 days — an impressive run for any coach.

Although no one can be sure Izzo flirting with the chance to coach superstar LeBron James only to turn it down had anything to do with those recruits’ choices, it is obvious Izzo’s decision this summer has given MSU basketball a very
bright future.

But the basketball program wasn’t the only team on campus affected by one of the biggest stories of the summer.

Four days before Izzo made his decision, the Big Ten announced it was welcoming Nebraska as its 12th member, forever changing the landscape of the conference and perhaps the NCAA.

The Cornhuskers being added to the Big Ten in 2011 has an effect on every sport, but most headlines regarding the story were directly related to how it will change football in the conference.

So far, it appears the change will be positive for head coach Mark Dantonio and the Spartans.

MSU now is part of potentially the best conference in the country next season with four of the most tradition-rich programs in college football history in Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State and Michigan. Add to that the fact the Spartans now will only have to win their future division to have a chance to play for a title in an actual conference championship game, and expansion might end up being the best thing to happen to MSU football since Rich Rodriguez was hired as the head coach at U-M.

So as the end of the summer nears a close, it likely will go down as one of the more significant college sports offseasons in recent history, especially for MSU.

And after college basketball and football junkies such as myself were given our fair share of stories to follow the last few months, Spartan fans can only hope the upcoming sports seasons are as good as what undoubtedly was an above average summer.
Jeremy Warnemuende is a State News sports reporter. He can be reached at warnemu3@msu.