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Without fans, a home advantage is slim, but MSU men's hoops bench makes up for it

December 5, 2020
Head Coach Tom Izzo yells during the game against the Detroit Titans on Dec. 4, 2020 at the Breslin Center. The Spartans defeated the Titans, 83-76.
Head Coach Tom Izzo yells during the game against the Detroit Titans on Dec. 4, 2020 at the Breslin Center. The Spartans defeated the Titans, 83-76. —
Photo by Annie Barker | The State News

Breaking news alert: the Izzone isn't at men's basketball games this year.

To make up for the lack of noise in an arena that doesn't look a whole lot different from practice day to game day, MSU men's basketball has been forced to adjust.

As the Spartans struggled in a back and forth affair against in-state opponent Detroit Mercy, chants of “defense” rung through the Breslin, but this time it wasn’t coming from the fishbowl of students surrounding the court.

Instead of MSU fans shaking the stands and vibrating the floor with their chants of Spartan pride, it was the MSU bench that brought the energy in MSU’s 83-76 victory over UDM Friday evening.

“We listened to the TV last night, Illinois and Baylor got loud, and I said, ‘Hey we’re at Michigan State, the Izzone is our fans but our bench is the same way,’” head coach Tom Izzo said of his teams’ bench chants. “I put that (energy from the bench) as a number one priority tonight believe it or not.”

Entering Friday’s matchup, MSU, in any other season, would’ve entered a Breslin Center full of fans ready to welcome their Spartans after a dominating victory over No. 6 Duke.

But this season is different.

The Izzone is replaced with still-photo panoramas.

The stands are half-full with paid fan cardboard cutouts — there are even some dogs scattered around. 

The home advantage is an ode to college sports and specifically college basketball. Reflecting on each press conference that previewed a matchup last season, each player and coach would acknowledge the difficulty of playing at places like the Breslin Center, Duke’s Cameron Indoor or Purdue’s Mackey Complex largely due to the energy of their fanbase. 

But this season, as junior forward Aaron Henry put it, it all starts at the bench.

“It starts on the bench, it really does. The guys on the bench have to make up for the fans,” Henry said. “We have to come up with our own chants, come up with our own energy and just make the people on the court feel that. And I feel like we did a good job of that even though times were hard in the midst of tough games, like that the bench has to be there, and I felt like we really were.”

It’s in games like these — where the Spartans struggle and an unranked opponent proves they can hang with the big guys — that energy is needed most.  

Playing a sloppy game largely defined by 17 turnovers, MSU looked drained as they tried desperately to regain a lead that they had initially claimed and there was no Izzone to ignite the drive back in them.  

“It is tough, we don’t have the Izzone behind us to pick us up when we’re down, we don’t have the big momentum swings that we sometimes get from them,” junior guard Foster Loyer said. “I think it’s being selfless when you’re out of the game, being a cheerleader when you’re on the bench and just trying to help your teammates.”

And so, the ode to the home team advantage is different this year. Aside from the court having a green Spartan in the middle, MSU and UDM played on even grounds Friday night.

There were no petty Izzone chants. There was no fire spitting from the hoop stand as the starting lineup announced. There was barely even a fight song, besides the prerecorded one that played over the same speakers that then fake fan noise did.

And it's for these reasons that bench energy is something the Spartans did not just prioritize today. It is something they have worked to improve on — and will continue to do so — throughout the season.

“That’s something we’ve been trying to work on each and every day even at practice," Loyer said." A lot of that comes from the bench, comes from our players our coaches, our trainers everybody that we are able to have at the game, we have got to be able to bring that energy.”

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