Izzo applies salve as Spartans fight to stay alive

Michigan State is more M*A*S*H unit than basketball team today, a group bound for the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament with more bumps and bruises than if it had spent an entire season inside a rugby scrum. It's the perfect time for a coach to offer every motivational ploy his mind can envision.

Tom Izzo seems to have that part down.

March Madness has created over the years a tournament celebrated for its excitement, its one-and-done format, its upsets. It has also made coaches more famous and recognizable than ever.

Some of the adulation is deserved.

Most of it isn't.

But you can't deny certain coaches get the most out of their teams during this month, that for whatever reason, their approach to the three-week tournament usually proves better than most. Izzo might be the best at it the last decade. Numbers suggest as much.

I think it's more system than anything with Michigan State. Every year, the Spartans struggle through patches and endure just enough ugly Big Ten Conference results to make you think that advancing them deep in your NCAA office pool is foolish.

Then the tournament's second week arrives and Michigan State is still kicking and you want to poke your eyes out with a green pen for again doubting Izzo's team.

Tournament games are unlike those from the previous four months. They are for the most part officiated differently. Defense and rebounding might sound like boring elements to an otherwise dramatic event, but teams that can offer enough of both usually find ways to advance because March often means fewer whistles and fortunate is the team that can get a stop when needed and not allow many second-chance points.

Izzo's teams have done it well enough that this is the program's ninth Sweet 16 in 13 years, a run that includes six Elite Eights, five Final Fours and a national championship, one that has offered as many challenges in this current journey to a Midwest Regional semifinal against Northern Iowa on Friday than any before.

"I'd say the greatest challenge but also the greatest opportunity," Izzo said. "I mean, I know nobody is picking us for much right now. We haven't been in that situation very often. I don't blame anybody, either. It's as unknown to me in some ways.

"But I'm kind of looking forward to it, to be honest. It's a new chapter. It's a new page. We have been through some challenges but maybe none as big as having your quarterback out and some other guys laid up a little bit. But just think what's at stake.

"We know how to lay it on the line, and we're going to go lay it on the line and see if we can advance one more game because history says if we can get to the second game of a weekend, we've got a chance."

They will try without point guard Kalin Lucas, his 34 minutes and 14.8 points and four assists gone with a ruptured Achilles' tendon.

Chris Allen is a starting guard whose bum foot limited him to four minutes in a second-round win against Maryland and Delvon Rowe a starting forward with an injured knee. Ice is as much of a part of Michigan State's routine this week as watching film.

Izzo has never coached a Spartans player for four years without taking him to the Final Four. Think about that. Year after year, he is able to get kids to be among the best at one skill (rebounding) most others work little at compared to their shots.

Coaches and their impact during games have been overrated for years. There are no secrets. They all know pretty much the same stuff.

But what separates the best from others in March is which ones can take what has become so routine, so standard within a program, so utterly predictable in its daily conclusion and make it appear fresh to his players.

When it comes to this month and this tournament and making things appear fresh, there is none better than Izzo.

"Our rebounding was as good last week as we've had," he said. "I mean, to outrebound (Maryland) by 18 was phenomenal. I told my team at halftime, 'This is going to be an easy second half. All we've got to do is hold them scoreless and we can't lose.'

"You know, if we get a lead (against Northern Iowa), I'm going to probably use that same speech in one of our timeouts."

Believe it: His players will respond as if they had never heard it.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618.