Day-After Rant
Posted by kj on Friday, February 29th, 2008
I held off posting these comments last night, but have decided they’re worth sharing.
I’m concerned about Izzo’s approach to this team at the moment. Consider the following from last night’s broadcast:
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Musberger and Lavin indicated Izzo’s been praising the team’s play publicly but chastising them privately.
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Erin Andrews reported Izzo was not at all pleased with MSU’s play in the first half, despite the fact they were down by just 4 having gotten only 2 total points from their top two scorers.
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Izzo could be seen ripping Naymick–a senior who plays defense as well as any Spartan big man has in the Izzo era–at point-blank range for a perceived defensive lapse late in the game (not jumping out on one of Wisconsin’s many slow, short-haired, white guys who make a 3-pointer once a game to drive the opponent crazy). Izzo berated him to the point Naymick looked like he wanted to go hide in the locker room.
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Izzo also appeared to be focusing on several offensive miscues by Lucas, despite the fact Lucas continues to be the only MSU player with the confidence to attack defenses and create scoring opportunities. (This one concerns me a little less than the Naymick thing, as Izzo may have just been providing instruction, rather than criticizing Lucas’ play.)
Izzo continues to behave as if this team’s problem is “toughness.” But it’s not. Last night, MSU played very good, team defense for 30+ minutes. They scrapped for rebounds all night. And they didn’t make careless errors with the ball on offense.
The current problem with this team is they can’t consistently create and convert quality shots against good defenses. If you want to chalk up the inability to make mid-range jumpers or contested 3-pointers consistently as a lack of mental toughness, fine. But in my book, Izzo needs to scale back the lambasting of the team for every defensive error or turnover and focus a little more energy on finding new ways to score and boosting the team’s confidence to attack the basket.
Now I understand this is the way Izzo operates and is largely responsible for the rise of Spartan basketball to the level of excellency that makes this season seem like such a disappointment, despite the team’s 22-6 record. I’ve been told by first-hand witnesses that Izzo’s language in practice (and no doubt during games) would make a sailor blush and doesn’t exactly come from the Stuart Smalley coaching manual for affirming your players’ self-wroth.
That is what it is, and I don’t expect–and, as an MSU fan, wouldn’t want–Izzo to change his style. But I do think he needs to recognize this team is playing pretty darn hard and actually pretty darn smart, too.
Michigan State came out last night playing confidently and aggressively on offense, jumping out to a 16-11 lead–much as they did in the game vs. IU. A little more focus on sustaining that confidence throughout the game in hostile environments, rather than focusing on the relatively minor flaws in MSU’s defense, might go a long way to getting this team ready for postseason play.
Please don’t lump me in the message board trolls calling for Izzo to be fired if he doesn’t turn the team around. I wouldn’t trade Izzo for any coach in the country, and I can only hope he stays on the Spartan sidelines for many years to come. But I do think his approach may need to be adjusted slightly to get the most out of this particular group of players.
As a final note, the reason I didn’t go into this rant last night, was one encouraging report late in the game: Erin Andrews indicated Izzo’s comments in one of the second-half timeouts were to the effect that he didn’t want anyone passing up an open shot. So Izzo may realize offensive confidence is a key for this team at this moment.
It would not, of course, be surprising if a future hall of fame coach arrived at a key conclusion before a schmuck with a blog did . . .
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No Responses to “Day-After Rant”
Huberton 29 Feb 2008 at 5:40 pm 1Clearly, Izzo is of the old school, Bobby Knight approach to coaching. the nice way to put it is ‘Paternalistics”, the less flattering way is manipulative and bullying. He seems more of the former and less of the latter than Knight, whom it is hard to conceive giving his players hugs or inviting them for barbecues to his house.
On the other hand, Izzo players have typically responded to this approach — from Peterson to Anderson, Ager to Davis, these were players Izzo made better, and by the end of their careers, they played well in the big games, even if clearly, they did not always perform miracles. I can remember teams not playing good defense (ie 2006), or players having odd slumps (Hill in 2005), but this team is the first I can remember that really seems to play scared in these away games.
On the other hand, I think you are falling prey to the same kitchen psychology as those who go on and on about “toughness”. The real problem last night, once again, was that when Neitzel is cold, we really struggle from the outside. Outside shooting is Lucas’ weakness, Allen is no better than Mojo was last year, Walton is more and more unwilling to take a three pointer at all, and the woeful offensive limits of our big guys, none of whom has any kind of range, means the other team can focus on Neitzel and pack it in, and never pay the cost. The team was fine yesterday, played some great defense, but they could not make a shot, and by the end of the second half noone wanted to take a shot. The fact is that if Neitzel was playing the point and we had a Shannon Brown or Maurice Ager at the 2, these games would all have been wins.
witless chumon 29 Feb 2008 at 7:10 pm 2I was sure the claim that Allen was no better than Maurice Joseph was last year wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny so I checked the official site.
Allen from 3 this year: 25-71 .352
MoJo from 3 last year: 42-116 .362
Shows you what I know.
What seems like Izzo’s mistake to me is continuing to run the offense with an eye toward getting Neitzel shots. It hasn’t worked against better competition this year. Maybe you don’t change the whole O, but it was very frustrating because earlier I was thinking ‘Well, if they jsut didn’t turn the ball over, they’d be very good.’ Not so much.
Kj touched earlier on making Lucas the focal point and I think we could do more with our bigs/Raymar Morgan, but really Neitzel and Morgan are the best options. If they both don’t get it done on the offensive end against a good team, we’ll lose.
Raymar is a guy who makes we want to buy into toughness, in that he seems to get flustered when things don’t go right. And he does the occasional insane thing.
GBBoundon 29 Feb 2008 at 7:49 pm 3Your discussion reminds me of what was written nearly two years ago:
http://msuproject.com/pages/izz_0321.html
kjon 29 Feb 2008 at 11:10 pm 4GBBound, I’m not so much concerned about Izzo’s antics on the sidelines–which I do think he’s toned down in recent years. I’m concerned that at some point you have to balance out the negative motivation with some positive motivation.
Hubert, I think Izzo probably is fairly Knight-like in how he runs practices. I don’t think he’s very Knight-like in terms of (1) an ability to connect with players off the court and (2) his treatment of people outside the team (media, other coaches, fans, administrators, etc.).
As for 3-point shooting as the primary problem last night, I think our perspectives actually fit together. Because the offense wasn’t playing aggressively, we didn’t get clean looks at 3-pointers playing from the inside out. All of the looks were forced because nothing else was available. Lucas is a good shooter when he’s set. And Allen can certainly fill it up when he’s in rhythm.
This is related to Witless Chum’s point about running the offense around Neitzel. At some point, Neitzel needs to get some looks off something other than a set play–penetration and kick out, finding the open man off double teams, etc. This side of J.J. Reddick, you can’t expect a shooter to score consistently when the other team knows he’s your primary option. It was a miracle Neitzel did it as consistently as he did last year.
Skippyon 01 Mar 2008 at 10:09 am 5Call a spade a spade, Spartan teams always choke.
Football or basketball if you go into the contest expecting them to lose like the always do, there is no dissapointment.
Occasionally the other teams loses, I can’t remember the last time a Spartan team went out and won a big game.
DMPon 01 Mar 2008 at 2:35 pm 6kj,
Thank for writing exactly what I’ve been thinking for a long time. At some point, you have to let players learn from mistakes, approach them to break down the whats and hows and the whys of those mistakes after you are both cooled down. Lucas needs some degree of liberty. He is the only one with the ability and the willingness to make his own plays. I always appreciate that Izzo doesn’t let his top players run amok and do their own thing like so many other top D-I coaches seem to do, but hanging on to every single mistake also seems too much.
I also agree with witless chum, MSU needed to get away from fixating on getting Neitzel shots. Given the way things were going at the beginning of this year, it didn’t seem like this particular team needed it. The team seemed to be going in a direction where it was progressing beyond just Neitzel. I appreciate everything he’s done and does in his four years, but this year isn’t the same as last where he was the most gifted player on the team. The focus not being on him seemed to work well throughout the non-conference season, and it seemed to be leading to a natural transition to the next generation by year end.
Skippy, I’m new to the site (love it, by the way) so I don’t know if you’re a regular just being sarcastic or a troll (regular or not) too dumb argued with. In either case, I’m happy because it means your comment needs no further response.
Danon 02 Mar 2008 at 4:12 pm 7Skippy, whatever you’re smoking, I’d suggest you cut back the dose a bit. If four Final Fours in the past decade is “always choking”, I’d hate to see what you call Michigan’s basketball program.