Men’s basketball head coach Tom Izzo yells to his players during the second round of the Big Ten Tournament against Iowa on March 15, 2013, at United Center in Chicago, Ill versus Iowa. Natalie Kolb/The State News
The squeaks of sneakers sprinting across MSU’s basketball practice court suddenly stopped as the 2009 Final Four banner billowed briskly against the wall Monday afternoon.
It wasn’t from a soft breeze, but rather the force of a basketball Tom Izzo had just punted high into the air after an offensive set wasn’t run the way he wanted.
The Spartans’ head coach always is intense — don’t get that twisted — and rarely is one to mince words, but usually he’ll wait more than two seconds before angrily venting his frustration.
In this instance, the source of rage stemmed from a player not running off a screen hard enough in the possession’s opening seconds, and after stressing all day the extreme necessity of attention to detail and a focus on the little things, this normally mundane infraction couldn’t be tolerated, not even for a moment.
For Izzo, it needed to be nipped in the bud and made an example of instantly.
That’s what happens when the NCAA Tournament arrives.
Pressure is ratcheted up, intensity is magnified and every single element is critical.
Anything could be the difference between a championship run and long-lasting disappointment.
Anything.
And Izzo knows that better than most.
He’s talked before about “the dream,” the rarified air his program would reach with a third national championship, the elite company he personally would join with a second national title.
Only seven basketball programs have three national championships: UCLA, Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina, Duke, Connecticut and Kansas.
Just 12 coaches have won multiple national titles, led by names such as Wooden, Knight and Krzyzewski.
It’s the holy grail, the elite of the elite, the ultimate blue bloods club.
It’s an automatic ticket punch to the hall of fame, and for a small man from a small town in the Upper Peninsula, membership among the founding fathers of his sport, the figureheads of his game, is what drives him.
And as Izzo glances across the landscape of college basketball this season, he knows the opportunity is there.
His team is far from perfect, but so is everyone else’s.
There’s never been a season in his tenure where as many teams were equally likely to make the Final Four as they were to lose in the opening weekend.
There aren’t any senior-laden North Carolina teams or Kentucky squads loaded with first-round draft picks standing in the way.
The path is clear, as clear as it’s ever been, and the Spartans are the ones with four projected NBA draft picks on their roster.
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It’s part of the reason Izzo bluntly said at a press conference Monday, “I will be very disappointed if we don’t make a run. I really will.”
A chance at basketball immortality is there for the taking.
Who knows when, or if, a better one will come.
Josh Mansour is The State News’ men’s basketball reporter. He can be reached at mansou13@msu.edu.
