“My dream as a Michigan State person, as a member of this community, was always to see the day when we were successful in both sports,” Izzo said. “Things have just gotten ratcheted up. I love what (MSU football coach) Mark (Dantonio) has done. He was the one that gave me all the credit early that we were their role model, now they’re becoming our role model.”

Izzo and the men’s basketball team will all travel to Indiana to cheer the Spartans toward the Rose Bowl.

On the basketball court, it’s been another crazy season, with upsets galore and ebbs and flows in the Top 25.

“I think, like everybody, I’m almost confused on how college basketball is going right now,” Izzo said. “We’ve been fairly consistently consistent.”

The Spartans got all but two first-place votes in the most recent college basketball poll, and remain on top for the third straight week.

North Carolina is heading in the opposite direction. After losing to Belmont, the Tar Heels upset defending national champion Louisville, but then lost to UAB on Sunday and now are unranked.

They’re also without guards P.J. Hairston and Leslie McDonald because of suspensions, but even so, Izzo said there is enough talent on the squad that the Spartans need to look out for.

“North Carolina is a funny team,” he said. “They’re missing Hairston, a great shooter, but they’ve still got five or six McDonald’s All?Americans on that team and tremendous size. They lost one game because they went 22-48 from the free?throw line and then lose in a hornet’s nest when their guard (Marcus) Paige played his worst game.”

He added that he has video of both players, and if they’re reinstated before the game, MSU will be prepared.

This is the first time MSU has sat at the top of the polls for three weeks in a row, and more impressive was that they sailed to a 98-65 win against Mount St. Mary’s Friday afternoon without their leading scorer Gary Harris, who was out with an ankle injury.

Izzo said Harris hasn’t done a thing for the last few days except rehab, but he’ll get back into the swing of things sooner than later.

“Will he play Wednesday? I’m 99 percent sure he will,” Izzo said. “I’m trying to get that (ankle) healed so he has the freedom to play like he wants to play. It’s what’s best for the long haul. And that’s what we’re going to do.”

According to Izzo, Harris is a game-changer on the offensive end of the floor, and can run in transition better than anyone on the team, but he’s “an eyelash” behind senior guard Keith Appling for the best defensive player on the team.

When Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer was at Florida, he would get calls from Izzo because Izzo was trying to figure out how he was winning so much.

There won’t be any conversations like that this week, but for a guy who has been at MSU for more than 20 years and loves both football and basketball, this will be a month to remember.

“It is a special week,” Izzo said. “When you get to play both (Kentucky and North Carolina) in the first seven, eight games, at home, and then your football team is preparing for arguably one of the greatest football games played here in 40 or 50 years, man, it’s banner.”