Tom Izzo consistently achieves glory on the first two NCAA Tournament weekends. Can he do it again on the third and final weekend? (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
The month of March is all about the color green. Grass grows once again, springtime plants begin to bloom, St. Patrick's Day occurs and of course, Michigan State Spartans basketball.
The battle cry of Michigan State fans is “go green” and that is exactly what happens once March Madness commences. Spartans head coach Tom Izzo is nicknamed “Mr. March” due to his NCAA Tournament record of 56-25.
With eight Final Four appearances, only four coaches in the entire history of the game have more. The eight Final Fours places him first among both active coaches and all-time in the Big Ten.
His 15 wins as the lower-seeded team (and hence the underdog) are the most in NCAA Tournament history. Even more impressive is Izzo's 15-11 career record as a lower seed. Fun fact: every player who stayed all four years at Michigan St. from 1999-2015 went to at least one Final Four.
This is why they sell t-shirts in East Lansing, Michigan that read “January. February. Izzo.” If there were March Madness carols (like Christmas carols), then the MSU fight song would certainly be one.
And on Feb. 15, Izzo became the winningest coach in Big Ten history after his Spartans beat the Illinois Fighting Illini 79-65 in Champaign. His team outscored the Illini 15 to -2 in the final seven minutes. Yes, you read that right — the Spartans held the Illini to negative scoring down the final stretch, because Illinois' final basket of the game was actually waived off.
The Iron Mountain, Michigan native got a bit emotional, when talking about the record with the RG and other members of the media.
“I looked it up a couple weeks ago,” Tom Izzo said after recording his milestone 354th career Big Ten win.
“I think I've had 148 players that I've coached that have been part of these 350-some wins. I've had six and seven Presidents and ADs. I've had, I think, 18 assistant coaches. And trainers and different people,” he said. “They're all part of this thing. But the greatest one, for me ... I think there were 6-million, 600-and-some-thousand people that helped me win 354 games — the fans in the stands. And that's what I think is building a program. I'm proud of that.”
It was an interesting game, played by what has been a very interesting team, all season long.
MSU (26-5), currently ranked #7 in the AP poll and #10 in the NET, has a true Gestalt. They are much more than the sum of their parts, as this is far from the most talented team that Izzo has had at Michigan State.
Their leading scorer, venerable veteran Jaden Akins, averages just as 12.9 points per game. Earlier this season, he joined the 1,000 points scored club.
“It's a blessing, being able to score 1,000 points for real,” he said of achieving the milestone. “I'm just thankful, and I want to keep winning."
MSU is a team with a lot of balance and depth, as articulated by second leading scorer Jase Richardson:
Jase is the son of former NBA Slam Dunk competition champion, Spartans legend and member of the 2000 National Title winning team Jason Richardson. The Richardsons are the first and only father-son combination that Izzo has coached in East Lansing."
Announcer Gus Johnson, while calling MSU's win at Northwestern in January, indicated that Jase beat his father Jason one-and-one, for the very first time, when he was aged 16. He did so by the score of 7-5.
“He's getting better every day,” Izzo said of Richardson, the only player on the current squad with any legitimate NBA Draft first round stock.
”He's always been able to come off those ball screens. He curls it a lot, and when he gets into that paint, he can make a lot of things happen. With his emergence, as he gets better, we're getting better too."
Big Ten champions this season, State currently projects as a #2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. So how are they going to do this March?
Well, if they win the first game on a given weekend, then they'll likely win the second one as well. State is 23-8, under Izzo, in the second game of a given NCAA Tournament weekend. And while Izzo is indeed Mr. March, he is definitely not Mr. April, as he's got a career record of 3-7 on the tournament's final weekend.
He led the green and white to a national title in 2000 (supplementing the national title won by his mentor/predecessor Jud Heathcote and Magic Johnson in 1979), but in the six Final Fours they've reached since then, they failed to cut down the nets. In sizing up their prospects for the big dance this time around, we could look at how they do in the Big Ten Tournament this weekend.
State has more Big Ten tourney wins (35) and tournament titles (6) than any other school. They claimed conference tournament titles in 1999, 2000, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2019. MSU went to the Final Four in '99, '00 and '19, made the Sweet Sixteen in 2012 and the Elite Eight in 2014. In 2016, they crashed out in the very first game. So there's some correlation here, but not complete.
Exploring it from the opposite angle — in 1998, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2010 and 2021, the Spartans were one & done in the Big Ten Tournament. Their corresponding results in the NCAAs in those years looks like this — Sweet Sixteen, Final Four, first round out, Final Four, Final Four, First Four elimination.
Here we can see a more noticeable trend occurring. However, it's not statistically significant enough to imply anything, and remember “correlation does not mean causation” like the famous rule of social science says.
Michigan State opens their Big Tournament as the #1 seed on Friday morning, when they will meet the winner of the Indiana-Oregon in the quarterfinal round.
And then it's on to Selection Sunday, when the Spartans will learn their NCAA Tournament opponent and destination.
Paul M. Banks
