Michigan State 95, Iowa 61 -- The Winning Streak Has Its Quinceanera

He has narcolepsy.

Quote from Izzo (per espn.com recap) regarding Appling and Lucious

“I wouldn’t trade the guy I have for the guy I had in a million years,” Izzo said. “Nothing against Lucious, but he had his chance and didn’t take advantage.”

I can’t disagree with him, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Izzo speak against a former player, much less anything that harsh.

And to think some were seriously discussing the retirement of some players’ jerseys from last years team.

1,000,000

Best ball movement for a sparty team in the past 3 years—-forget about the lucious reference—i would take Appling over Kalin “2 assists-4 turnover” Lucas

to be good the whole has to be greater than the sum of its parts——sparty is starting to look like a team. That being said, when push comes to shove, to be really good we need to get more out of Payne than we are now—-still has no intuitiveness on the court——needs to explode for rebounds—-needs to block out—-he should be a 9 and 9 man every night—-hands of stone—-i think he is the “X” factor—-Dawson will be better before the season is over—-great athlete—raw talent—his D will get better

This is a vintage Izzo response to a bad season. Last season will go down as the worst in Izzo’s tenure so far, and I know he felt the need to redeem himself. So how does he do it? He has the team playing like this.

This year his team is not only playing much better than last year, but they are also playing better than they have played since the National Championship team. The problems that have seemed to plague even the really good teams we’ve had are gone. We aren’t turning the ball over all the time, we aren’t being complacent against lower tier opponents, we aren’t starting slow every game. We’re playing to our level, not the level of our competition, every single game. And that’s special. Plus, we have an emotional leader who everyone on the team seems to respect; this is something that can’t necessarily be planned, but does help a whole lot.

Strap in guys, this is a special year for MSU basketball.

Before the Nix Tech, did anyone see Gatens swing twice on B. Wood? Then B. Wood started talking trash to Gaten. Then Izzo screaming at Wood to “Shout your mouth.”

He was not happy with Wood’s talking but seemed to brush off the Nix tech because after the Nix tech he spent that time out to continue rip Wood a new one.

Thoughts?

not down on Lucas—great player—4 points short of 2000—2 final fours—this team has better ball movement—-while lucas was agreat talnet, he didn’t make guys around him better—9 and 9 in conference last year-including a couple of blowouts on the road and a couple of losses at home…was a better 1 as a sophomore than as senior—-assists went down and turnovers went up—-didn’t see the court real well

that being said—this team is still work in progress—right now you know what you have in many of the guys—-Nix biggest improvement from one year to the next for a player in a long time—-Dawson is coming along though sloer than i look—would like to see him crash the offensive glass more than he has and equal to the reputation that he had—-in high school my guess is he did it on raw talent—the same kind of raw athletic talent that made Torbert a top 15 player out of high school—-once he learns the art of boxing out and rebounding it could be quite a show—his offense and defense will come along—-still think Payne is the x-factor—starting to believe that what we see is what we are going to get—-if he develops into 75% of what we hope he can be——we will be very good on the front line and difficult to defend

http://www.blackheartgoldpants.com/2012/1/11/2699230/fran-graphs-michigan-state

The three years before last year were a terrific ride for us MSU fans. In a way, these guys made success look easy. It’s not. But in Sparty’s run of 14 straight NCAA Tournament appearances, there are definitely cycles at work based on the rotation of talent. A quick summary of the 14 consecutive NCAA Tournament seasons makes last year’s downer look like part of a normal cycle from recruitment to graduation:
97-98: Big Ten—tied for 1st NCAA—Sweet 16
98-99: BT—1st NCAA—Final Four
99-00: BT—Tied for 1st NCAA—Champions
00-01: BT—Tied for 1st NCAA—Final Four
01-02: BT—5th NCAA—First Round
02-03: BT—Tied for 3rd NCAA—Elite Eight
03-04: BT—Tied for 2nd NCAA—First Round
04-05: BT—2nd NCAA—Final Four
05-06: BT—Tied for 6th NCAA—First Round
06-07: BT—Tied for 7th NCAA—Second Round
07-08: BT—Tied for 4th NCAA—Sweet Sixteen
08-09: BT—1st NCAA—Runner-Up
09-10: BT—Tied for 1st NCAA—Final Four
10-11: BT—Tied for 4th NCAA—First Round

Granted, that crew led by Neitzel (04-08) only made the Sweet Sixteen his senior year, but each group of recruits have made their mark, and each team has growing pains as they learn how to take their shot at the prize.
I’d argue that most of last year’s problems stem from the absence of Lucious and Allen. Take two starter-quality caliber upperclassmen away from any backcourt in America, replace those two guys with two walk-ons and a freshman, and see how they fare. A lot of teams wouldn’t survive the loss of one guy; imagine UConn last year without Kemba Walker or BYU without Jimmer. Izzo and his assistants couldn’t find a rotation because they were missing too many pieces of the planned whole.
So we had our down season a year sooner than previous performance would have suggested, but let’s not forget it was because our coach decided that no player was BIGGER THAN THE PROGRAM. None of that diminishes Kalin Lucas’ contributions, or his legacy, in my view. The guy is #5 all-time in scoring, ahead of Jay Vincent.

But now, this is Green’s team. Appling is stepping up. Team chemistry is off the charts, and the ceiling’s pretty darn high, as Izzo likes to say. Nothing’s in the book yet, but the sky’s the limit. Go Green!