SATURDAY, MARCH 21 EAST LANSING – Tom Izzo was running practice a couple of weeks ago when a trainer came to him with some breaking news.
Virginia’s Tony Bennett retired at 55 years with 15 years service and one NCAA title.
Izzo knows Bennett and his father personally and it was really disheartening to see another successful coach resign early due to changing nature of college sports.
“I said to him that I do not even know whether I like him because he made me proud or I envy him,” Izzo said.
Though Izzo is concerned with such issues he is an active one nowadays, his concern is more on other areas now. He has a brand new team to assemble and he’s entering his 30th season at Michigan State.
Jones then šok: “I’ve been on every committee, I’ve tried to change the world,” Izzo said. “The world’s kicked my tail. Now I’m going to try to kick my team’s and worry about my team.”
The Spartans returns to Breslin to face Ferris State on Tuesday in their second and final exhibition game that does not count. The first one will be more partly because of a 70-53 victory against Northern Michigan on Oct 13 in Izzo’s UP homecoming.
“I’m still more worried about us than I am our opponent,” said Izzo, though made it clear that, “it is hard to scout any of these guys now with the number of new people they have.”
After more than a year’s experience on the job, head coach Andy Bronkema steered Ferris State to a Division II national title last year and the Bulldogs posted a 28-8 record and reached the Elite Eight. The new team members with the Danes in the offseason included four freshmans and three new transfers.
“A little bit, some of it you look at what they did offensively last year or what they do, but as far as personnel that gets hard and that is the tough part about these many early season games.”
FIBA regulations, on the other hand, permit two friendly into games before the commence of the competing campaign that can be lettered friendly or closed trials. The opportunity to compare themselves with another first-rate program in a game that is not necessarily for tv is enticing but that will not happen this year for the Spartans due to the trip to the U.P.
“If it was a normal year, I do like one exhibition game and one scrimmage, but it’s just a special year so we did it the way we did it,” Izzo said. The exhibition games are good. I think it lets the fans see us, let us be on the floor and is Spanish for someone entirely novel.”
Izzo wasn’t satisfied with the result in Marquette although he paid his old tribute before coming back to East Lansing. It is crunch time to sort out so many things after the loss of the top three scorers in the previous lineup.
Jaden Akins, a senior guard, and Jeremy Fears, who was a freshman point guard, will be new leading scorers this season Fears missed most of his freshman season after sustaining a gunshot wound to the leg. Also highlighted two other senior transfer acquisitions in wing Frankie Fidler and center Szymon Zapala while the refurbished team began practice early with a three-game ten day tour of Spain in August.
“I think that is as close a group as I’ve had in a while,” Izzo said.
Michigan State finished a practice last week simulating every aspect of a game down to the initial tip off and chasing down missed free throws. Those will remain priorities for the Spartans as they look forward to the Nov. 4 opener against Monmouth.
“We feel we’ve got to steal possessions and the more possessions we’ve got, the more shots,” Izzo added. “That is why turnovers are going to be big, offensive rebounding is still going to be big, not giving them extra shots off rebounds or missed free throws is going to be big.”
So you had just about all of them switching positions and thus, Izzo did a lot of shuffling in Spain and Marquette. It includes returners some of whom transferred back to Xavier after playing at other colleges, few players who were signed to be stand out performers, and those who are still unknown quantities.
“It is going to be a lot of people playing,” Izzo said about Tuesday’s game against Ferris State. We all want some sort of stability like who we start,” he said . Maybe it’s not yet but soon.”
