Coach Tom Izzo smiles as the Spartans celebrate winning the Big 10 Championship. The Spartans beat the Wolverines, 65-60, at the United Center on March 17, 2019.
—CHICAGO — Tom Izzo teared up a few times Sunday at the United Center.
First, he cried of anguish when redshirt junior forward Kyle Ahrens went down with a scary left ankle injury late in the first half. Ahrens’ screams were the only thing audible inside a shell-shocked building.
Then, after senior guard Matt McQuaid hit a three-pointer with 2:02 left to cut Michigan’s lead to 60-58, he got emotional.
Finally, after the confetti had fallen, and Michigan State had won a Big Ten tournament championship and completed a three-game sweep of its rival Michigan, he got choked up again.
“I've never been prouder of a team in my life,” Izzo said.
This team could have folded on Friday against Ohio State, back when people were still saying that the Big Ten tournament didn’t matter and MSU should get rested for the Big Dance the next week.
Junior guard Joshua Langford is out for the season with a left foot injury, junior forward Nick Ward is just working his way back from a left hand injury, junior point guard Cassius Winston is dealing with a laundry list of lower-body ailments and senior forward Kenny Goins is banged up as well.
Izzo said he asked his team point blank before the game whether they wanted to go all-out in a game that wouldn’t help their draw in the tournament much, and eventually did cost them a valuable rotation piece in Ahrens.
They certainly could have folded when Ahrens went down, and they trailed by 13 with 16:53 remaining.
“We’re gonna fight no matter what,” Goins said.
Yet, improbably, for the second time in eight days, the Spartans stared down their rival with a championship on the line, and didn’t flinch.
All it took was a career-high 27 points from McQuaid, and maybe a little magic on the game-winning lay-up by Winston. The ball looked sure to bounce out, but then it was pulled back, by some mysterious force, and dropped through the net with 28 seconds remaining.
“Spartan will,” freshman forward Aaron Henry, whose defense on Michigan’s Ignas Brazdeikis helped keep MSU in it in the second half, said.
Final: Michigan State 65, Michigan 60.
The players all had pieces of the net tied up in the front of their snapback hats in the locker room after the game, smiling and holding the tournament trophy. With Ahrens back with the team after X-rays revealed that his ankle was sprained, not broken, that emotional weight was off their shoulders.
Nobody seemed to care much that the Spartans had been drawn in the same East region of the NCAA Tournament as top overall seed Duke, despite being the No. 6 team according to the selection committee.
“I don’t know anything about who puts people where, or the decisions going into that,” Winston said. “Hey, I’m just ready to play. I’m ready to make a run in the tournament.”
Outside the locker room, in the informal media scrum, Izzo searched for the words to describe his team’s resilience. Izzo yelled at Winston at halftime for being too passive, and he looked up to the ceiling when recalling the moment.
“It’s nice that I can call on a guy, and he can respond after he’s been challenged,” Izzo said. “That’s what life’s all about to me, man. That’s what I love about my job.”
Izzo said that no team will ever compare to the Mateen Cleaves vintages in terms of mental toughness, joking that Cleaves was so mentally tough he scared him.
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That 2000 championship with Cleaves at the helm happened a long time ago. Winston had barely turned two years old.
Izzo has softened in the latter half of his 64 years. The Cleaves-era Izzo maybe isn’t as reflective in the moment as this man is now.
He was asked specifically about why, with the game hanging in the balance and a United Center crowd roaring with equal partisanship for both sides, he would tear up after the last McQuaid three.
“I was just so proud of them,” Izzo said.
As soon as the bracket was announced, MSU fans and members of the national media took to Twitter to protest the Spartans seeding. The game was already an afterthought. But, here’s what I think.
If Izzo, a man who is as singularly obsessed with winning championships as any coach in the country, can find pride and joy just from the fightback in his team, before a championship tilt is even decided, then so can the rest of us.
The NCAA tournament begins Thursday. MSU plays Bradley in Des Moines, Iowa, and who knows? It could lose that afternoon, and the season would be over in a flash. It certainly will be a heavy underdog if it does make it all the way to the regional final and faces Duke.
Let’s remember this team either way.
Izzo will.
“It was one of those times that you won’t forget in a coaching career,” he said.
