Here We Go Again: Oregon Reportedly Interested in Izzo

before I got bored. Not with the post itself (good research, by the way), but with the notion of other organizations/universities trying to pry Izzo away from State. Izzo is king at MSU. He is not under-appreciated, he is not (grossly) underpaid and he is not the type to fall in love with other places on a bi-weekly basis (ahem, Petrino?). In fact, the most likely place I could ever see Izzo going (and it’s far from likely) is over to the football program. Izzo’s your coach, enjoy your bajillionth Final Four.

…was pretty vociferous defending Nike from his fanbase during the great logo affair that almost no one now remembers…..

I kid. I’ll eat my hat, hell I’ll eat a maize and blue sombrero, if Izzo leaves MSU for another college job. The NBA, maybe, for the reasons Grinz lays out. But he’s green and white forever as far as college jobs go. Unless the administration were to start treating him shabbily, or something, there’s no way. This is a guy who I personally saw at the football spring game last year, talking to a tailgating fan who had an actual stuffed Wolverine on a pole.

(And let’s just note for those of us who subscribe to a dead tree version of one of the chain of newspapers that bought Grinz out. Hell of a drop-off from him to David Mayo in writing, thinking and just in-depth knowledge of MSU.)

…you hear Izzo talk, and it’s clear that he still feels like there’s work to be done here. He knows MSU isn’t at the level of Kentucky, Duke, UNC. It doesn’t make sense to me that Izzo would want to leave an emerging powerhouse program to go to a middle Pac-10 school simply for the sake of more money and the opportunity to hang out at Nike HQ.

Besides, have you seen those unis? WOOF.

MSU loves Izzo. You can’t offer anything that MSU can’t at least be competitive enough so that Izzo’s 25+ years spent patrolling the sidelines here won’t override the money.

I think most Oregon fans agree with Katz. I don’t see any way in hell that Oregon would lure Izzo away from MSU. He’s had so many chances to leave for the best money in the game, and he’d suddenly leave for Oregon?

I think Oregon is merely testing the waters with just about every big name, and this shows how far they will go to get a good coach. But hell, it doesn’t hurt to ask the best coach in the game.

As an Oregon fan, I’d be ecstatic if the Ducks were to pull in Izzo. I’ve lived in Michigan and Chicago for 8 years and followed MSU basketball pretty closely. If I could pick any coach to come to Oregon, it’d be Izzo. But that’s not gonna happen.

The rest of the country wishes, psyche!

Linked to this in the new post that just went up, but here’s Izzo on ESPN last night (this morning?). Scroll to the bottom. Says no one’s contacted him. Solid response with no hint of interest.

You know the other thing is that he seems to be the happiest he’s looked in a long while. I think he’s gotta like where the program is and that Kalin is likely coming back (and a good class coming in). I mean there’s no chance right? Plus it’s fricken Oregon.

Rexrode with more:

Izzo was just on a teleconference with the other Final Four coaches and was asked about Oregon. He said he hasn’t been contacted, mentioned that when you have some success “you get to be one of 10 names that pop up for something.” He then said he wouldn’t comment further during Final Four week.

The other programs that could possibly hold some allure are the true blue bloods of college basketball (and frankly I think we’re right there with most of them at this point). That would be UNC, Kansas, Indiana, UK and UCLA. UNC, Kansas, and UK all hired coaches within the past few year that are not going anywhere based on win-loss performance. Cal may wind up on the wrong side of an NCAA infraction at some point, but that is a different issue.

I don’t see Izzo taking another Big 10 job, or the job his best friend currently holds, so that rules out Indiana, leaving UCLA. If John Wooden called him, I expect Izzo would listen. I doubt he would take the job in the end, but I think he would give it consideration. Other than that there isn’t a better post in college basketball than the one he already holds.

Let’s say Tom turns down the offer (which he will), what are the odds we are an Adidas team in future? ;P

Not.
Happening.

I could see it for an NBA job (I think his biggest strengths come into play more in the college game than the pros, but the challenge might appeal to him), but there’s no college job that would make him leave. There are maybe two or three jobs nationally that would be steps up, and all of them come with fan bases that would demand national titles yesterday. Oregon isn’t even a sideways move, it’s a backwards one. (Nothing personal, Oregon fans. But you know as well as I do that it’s true.)

As a career move, this doesn’t make sense. All Izzo has talked about is building a program at Michigan State that would be talked about among the elite schools. It can be argued that he has accomplished that task. To walk away now just doesn’t seem like a Tom Izzo move, with his sense of loyalty.
Beyond that, I would imagine that it would take at least five years to build a solid program at Oregon. He likes March too much to be spending them as a guest commentator on CBS broadcasts.