Spartans Turn To Experience For Answers
3/2/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 2, 2014
By Steve Grinczel, MSUSpartans.com On-Line Columnist
EAST LANSING, Mich. - "Doing things the easy way" has never been a line on Tom Izzo's coaching resume at Michigan State.
Even his 2000 national championship team played the first 11 games without its most important player and no guarantees about how effective Mateen Cleaves could be when he eventually returned from foot surgery.
So when the Spartans went through this past off-season without injuries or issues for the first time under Izzo in memory, if ever, and then lined up a team that appeared so formidable on paper it started the season at No. 2 on the charts with a bullet, and then seemed to validate those universally held first impressions by streaking to their best-ever start, there was an unreal feel to it all.
Reality stormed back with a vengeance in the form of ailments afflicting various players, and even then, MSU rose above it all, at least until the latest 10-game stretch that came to an end with Saturday's 53-46 loss in the Breslin Center to a young, but scrappy, Illinois team that had lost eight in a row in January and February.
Despite the return of Branden Dawson from a nine-game absence due to a broken hand, Michigan State slipped to 4-6 since opening the season at 18-1. In spite of having every member of the team available to play for the first time since Jan. 4, the Spartans registered their season-low point total while dropping a second straight home game at for the first time since back-to-back defeats against Purdue and Ohio State in 2010.
Like in Sunday's loss to Michigan, the game against the Fighting Illini went against convention. Throughout its recent struggles, MSU still valued the ball better than any other team of the Izzo era until committing 16 turnovers that led to 25 Illinois points.
As disappointed as Izzo was with the Spartans' inexplicable case of malaise - yet another ailment -- against the Fighting Illini, there was a bring-it-on edge to his postgame press conference even to the point that he outlasted the reporters' ability to ask questions.
"I thought the energy level was at an all-time worst," Izzo said. "When you have the number of points off turnovers they had for the game, you're not going to win many of those. When some of your best players don't play real well, you're not going to win many of those.
"I thought (freshman Gavin) Schilling actually played pretty well, played with some energy. I thought Dawson played phenomenal with some energy considering the 30-some days he's missed. And I thought (Gary) Harris was probably one of the best players because he guarded and did some things.
"After that, we had a complete meltdown."
Maybe it was to be expected given the remarkable way things transpired through the first 19 games. When things are too good to be true, however, they usually are.
When Izzo said, "We lost that game because we did not play the way a Michigan State Spartan team is supposed to play," he was referring to an uncharacteristic aversion to playing the kind of defense that results in bloody noses, raw knuckles and floor-burned knees.
But it could also be interpreted as the lack of defiance for the basketball gods who never shied away from heaping adversity on Izzo's previous teams. If Michigan State was caught unawares up to this point, Izzo, for one, won't be going forward.
"This team has been through a lot, but I didn't see it coming," he said. "There's no excuse for that. You can't be tired. We practiced harder than we played. I'll throw myself under the bus - that's inexcusable, ridiculous. There's just too many things that maybe these guys have had to go through, so maybe a slap in the face was good. Maybe that'll wake us up because they got hit today.
"It will be fun now because really, I don't care about anybody but my team now and I like it that way. I really do."
Given MSU's level of talent and experience, the challenge of getting its house in order with just two games remaining before the start of postseason play wouldn't appear so daunting if the Spartans were completely healthy.
However, senior big man Adreian Payne and senior point guard Keith Appling still aren't right after dealing with their respective foot and wrist injuries. Payne totaled four points and seven rebounds and there's no hint of the Player-of-the-Year numbers Appling put up, pre-injury, in his five points, four assists and four turnovers against the Illini.
What's more, defenses are sagging off Appling and helping elsewhere in ways they wouldn't dare when he was a dangerous threat to sting them with jump shots in addition to driving the lane.
And yet, as bad as it may seem, Izzo, ever the glutton for punishment, almost seems to be relishing the situation.
"I've been through a lot more than this, gang," he said. "I've been through things that were way worse than this and we got to a Final Four. So, my team doesn't look like my team today (and) we'll have to figure out why.
"I still think I know part of the reason. We're just a little dysfunctional. We've got guys in there playing that haven't played together. And so, we'll do what we can do and see what we can do, and we'll go from there. We'll be back."
First, they have to recover from still another ailment, being "shell-shocked," as Izzo said.
"It's going to be interested to see how we bounce back and respond in practice and again on Thursday (against Iowa on Senior Night)," Harris said. "We're sticking behind our guys 100 percent. Only time will tell if we're going to look back on this as this is when we turned our season around or this is when our season went down the drain."
Izzo referenced the 2004-05 Spartans, whose toughness he questioned on a near-daily basis. After finishing second in the Big Ten and losing to Iowa in their first game of the Big Ten Tournament, all they did is demonstrate amazing heart while beating Duke and Kentucky in the Austin, Texas regionals before losing to North Carolina in the national semifinal in St. Louis.
Michigan State will now draw on what Izzo referred to as the "advantage of experience."
It's often called the best teacher in sports, and class is in session.
