I fear Izzo is going down the Keady/Knight route

MattyFresh wrote:is he combing his hair with a pork chop yet?

This thread has aged... Poorly.

I am sure the OP is a big fan...for the moment.

Bumping banned user threads

kingstonlake wrote:Bumping banned user threads

It's bumped annually at the start of the season. As the team nearly lost to Cleveland State today, I started thinking about the time the board freaked out (it was like 2.5 people and a dog) about Izzo being washed up.

The_Dude wrote:Nearing end of career, game has seemed to pass him by. Stubbornness costing him games. His sets on offense simply don't work and executing out of timeouts are non existent. Coupled with failed recruiting, the parralels are quite similar.

Great thread. Not quite as cuntish as Turtledick's threads but......close.

msuspartan4eva wrote:

The_Dude wrote:Nearing end of career, game has seemed to pass him by. Stubbornness costing him games. His sets on offense simply don't work and executing out of timeouts are non existent. Coupled with failed recruiting, the parralels are quite similar.

Great thread. Not quite as cuntish as Turtledick's threads but......close.

Who talks like this?

Today's first half was predicted a long time ago.

Keady and Izzo’s careers are so much alike I can see how a blind troll would fall into this conclusion.

Keady coached Purdue to 2 Elite Eights and 5 Sweet Sixteens and 6 Big Ten Championships

Izzo (through 2018) has coached MSU to 1 National Championship, 6 more Final Fours and 8 Big Ten regular season Championships

Good comparison from the view under the OP’s bridge.

Izzo's gang no longer green giant
by Jim Carty

Wednesday, January 30, 2002

It'll be easy to remember when it became clear Michigan State's basketball dynasty had peaked and was on the way down.

Easy to remember because Tom Izzo himself delivered the message.

It was just last week. Izzo popped up on the television, in between games on ESPN, doing college basketball analysis in the middle of his own season. There he was, sitting next to some hair-sprayed anchor, talking basketball when he could be coaching it.

Writing his own obit to Michigan State's amazing run of three straight Final Fours, four straight Big Ten titles and the 2000 national championship.

Greatness takes everything you've got, sometimes more than you even think you can give. Izzo could have never built what he's built in Lansing by taking time out mid-season to play Howard Cosell on national television.

The fact that he's willing to do it now is proof in living color that on some level he's ready for a change. Make all the excuses you want about having a lot of time off between games or the ESPN gig being a fun way to promote the program, the bottom line is that basketball suddenly isn't enough to keep Izzo busy. He needed a getaway, a little fun, something different at a point in the season when most big-time basketball coaches are in the office 10 or more hours a day six or seven days a week.

Those are the kind of hours University of Michigan coach Tommy Amaker puts in.

Amaker has the drive and focus Izzo had back in 1995 when he replaced Jud Heathcote, when he had to prove he deserved the job, had to win over Mateen Cleaves and everybody else.

Amaker won't take time out to do 15 minutes on Detroit sports radio - he tells his media relations guy he's just too busy during the season - let alone give ESPN a day of his time. He and his staff don't have time to watch TV, let alone appear on it. They're mad, they're this bad and consumed by making sure they never are again.

Some folks will tell you Izzo can and will coach circles around Amaker. Maybe. They'll tell you Izzo is much, much better at promoting his program in the media. That's true, but nobody ever won a game that way.

They'll say the Spartans again outrecruited Michigan this year, and that this year's little slump in Lansing is to be expected, and that even in a bad year Michigan State will make the NCAA Tournament.

Maybe.

But maybe everyone has yet to grasp just how big a threat Amaker and Michigan are, just how hard it's going to be to maintain Michigan State's dynasty, even if Izzo's at his best.

If Amaker isn't the best young recruiter in America, he's close. At Seton Hall he attracted the nation's No. 1 recruit and No. 1 recruiting class to a school with on-campus facilities comparable to some Michigan community colleges, a school that sits on the outskirts of a Newark slum. They came for one reason: Kids and parents fall in love with and trust Tommy Amaker.

It's starting already here. Amaker may have already found his own Cleaves in Texas guard Daniel Horton. He's going to sign super junior Dion Harris of Detroit Redford next year, just watch, and Harris will only be part of yet another great class.

The University of Michigan, meanwhile, is this state's historically dominant basketball program, and Michigan kids will flock here over any other option if the Wolverines are decent.

What Izzo has accomplished the last four years towers over the Fab Five years at Michigan in terms of achievements, but for some reason Michigan State has never approached that Fab level of buzz outside of ... say ... Lansing and some Flint neighborhoods. The Fab Five were a national story. Every little kid with a pair of Jordans and a hoop in his neighborhood knew C Webb and the boys.

A lot of those kids are now going to the Nike or ABCD camps, and they remember those years. Most of them can't name four members of the five, but it doesn't matter. When it comes down to Michigan vs. Michigan State, Amaker vs. Izzo for a recruit, the Fabs are going to be a tie-breaker. Mark it down.

Izzo's been lucky up until now, he hasn't had to really deal with Michigan. He's received a huge boost in his program building by circumstances like the Ed Martin scandal, the ugly end of the Steve Fisher era, the inability of Brian Ellerbe to figure out he needed good kids, not just good players, to succeed at Michigan.

This isn't to say Izzo and the Spartans are done now, mind you.

They'll probably beat the heck of Amaker and Michigan tonight at the Breslin Center.

They need to. The free pass has been canceled. Michigan vs. Michigan State is an even fight again, and it's going to be a fight. The Spartans are ahead now, and will be a factor as long as Izzo is in Lansing, but in the long run my money is on the guy who's too busy coaching to appear on the radio.

Turtleneck wrote:Izzo's gang no longer green giant
by Jim Carty

Wednesday, January 30, 2002

It'll be easy to remember when it became clear Michigan State's basketball dynasty had peaked and was on the way down.

Easy to remember because Tom Izzo himself delivered the message.

It was just last week. Izzo popped up on the television, in between games on ESPN, doing college basketball analysis in the middle of his own season. There he was, sitting next to some hair-sprayed anchor, talking basketball when he could be coaching it.

Writing his own obit to Michigan State's amazing run of three straight Final Fours, four straight Big Ten titles and the 2000 national championship.

Greatness takes everything you've got, sometimes more than you even think you can give. Izzo could have never built what he's built in Lansing by taking time out mid-season to play Howard Cosell on national television.

The fact that he's willing to do it now is proof in living color that on some level he's ready for a change. Make all the excuses you want about having a lot of time off between games or the ESPN gig being a fun way to promote the program, the bottom line is that basketball suddenly isn't enough to keep Izzo busy. He needed a getaway, a little fun, something different at a point in the season when most big-time basketball coaches are in the office 10 or more hours a day six or seven days a week.

Those are the kind of hours University of Michigan coach Tommy Amaker puts in.

Amaker has the drive and focus Izzo had back in 1995 when he replaced Jud Heathcote, when he had to prove he deserved the job, had to win over Mateen Cleaves and everybody else.

Amaker won't take time out to do 15 minutes on Detroit sports radio - he tells his media relations guy he's just too busy during the season - let alone give ESPN a day of his time. He and his staff don't have time to watch TV, let alone appear on it. They're mad, they're this bad and consumed by making sure they never are again.

Some folks will tell you Izzo can and will coach circles around Amaker. Maybe. They'll tell you Izzo is much, much better at promoting his program in the media. That's true, but nobody ever won a game that way.

They'll say the Spartans again outrecruited Michigan this year, and that this year's little slump in Lansing is to be expected, and that even in a bad year Michigan State will make the NCAA Tournament.

Maybe.

But maybe everyone has yet to grasp just how big a threat Amaker and Michigan are, just how hard it's going to be to maintain Michigan State's dynasty, even if Izzo's at his best.

If Amaker isn't the best young recruiter in America, he's close. At Seton Hall he attracted the nation's No. 1 recruit and No. 1 recruiting class to a school with on-campus facilities comparable to some Michigan community colleges, a school that sits on the outskirts of a Newark slum. They came for one reason: Kids and parents fall in love with and trust Tommy Amaker.

It's starting already here. Amaker may have already found his own Cleaves in Texas guard Daniel Horton. He's going to sign super junior Dion Harris of Detroit Redford next year, just watch, and Harris will only be part of yet another great class.

The University of Michigan, meanwhile, is this state's historically dominant basketball program, and Michigan kids will flock here over any other option if the Wolverines are decent.

What Izzo has accomplished the last four years towers over the Fab Five years at Michigan in terms of achievements, but for some reason Michigan State has never approached that Fab level of buzz outside of ... say ... Lansing and some Flint neighborhoods. The Fab Five were a national story. Every little kid with a pair of Jordans and a hoop in his neighborhood knew C Webb and the boys.

A lot of those kids are now going to the Nike or ABCD camps, and they remember those years. Most of them can't name four members of the five, but it doesn't matter. When it comes down to Michigan vs. Michigan State, Amaker vs. Izzo for a recruit, the Fabs are going to be a tie-breaker. Mark it down.

Izzo's been lucky up until now, he hasn't had to really deal with Michigan. He's received a huge boost in his program building by circumstances like the Ed Martin scandal, the ugly end of the Steve Fisher era, the inability of Brian Ellerbe to figure out he needed good kids, not just good players, to succeed at Michigan.

This isn't to say Izzo and the Spartans are done now, mind you.

They'll probably beat the heck of Amaker and Michigan tonight at the Breslin Center.

They need to. The free pass has been canceled. Michigan vs. Michigan State is an even fight again, and it's going to be a fight. The Spartans are ahead now, and will be a factor as long as Izzo is in Lansing, but in the long run my money is on the guy who's too busy coaching to appear on the radio.

Tommy Amaker lol. Actually doing a solid job at Harvard

I wonder if Carty is doing as solid a job as a lawyer as he did as a sportswriter.


Edit: Good lord, Carty is sharing his genius as an assistant US attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit.

I didn't read the date and just started reading. About shit myself when I saw Amaker's name.

Tommy recruited a bunch of guys who could run fast and jump high. Unfortunately, he coached a sport that the winner was determined by the number of times a ball goes thru the basket. he should of kept the scholly for david kool cause his kids didn't score.

David Kool... Holy flashback.

Holmes wrote:Tommy recruited a bunch of guys who could run fast and jump high. Unfortunately, he coached a sport that the winner was determined by the number of times a ball goes thru the basket. he should of kept the scholly for david kool cause his kids didn't score.

David Kool had a wonderful career at WMU because a player with his skill set can have a great MAC career.

Northwestern, Iowa, Minnesota and other Big Ten schools never offered.

I thought he suffered a really bad injury in high school, and a lot of bigger programs backed off. I might be thinking of somebody else.

Edit: tore his ACL in spring of his junior year in high school. Not sure if it impacted his recruitment.
https://www.mlive.com/sports/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2016/02/grand_rapids_south_christians_3.html

Game must have passed him by before turning around and picking him up for another ride to the Final Four.

Hope The_Dude's fear didn't start a bleeding ulcer and he's been getting life saving transfusions.

Who'd of predicted Izzo going to another Final Four could lead to tragic events.

The OP is such an insufferable gasbag.

Bump for the new season.