EAST LANSING – More than 29 years ago, when Tom Izzo stepped on the sideline for his first Big Ten game, Bob Knight was there to greet him.
It ended up as the first conference victory for the young Michigan State basketball coach.
On Tuesday, when Indiana once again visits Breslin Center, the aura of Knight again will loom large, with a chance for Izzo to overtake “The General” and become the winningest coach in Big Ten history.
The 11th-ranked Spartans host the Hoosiers with Izzo tied with Knight at 353 league victories. It is a threshold the 70-year-old Naismith Hall of Famer has tried to ignore in his 30th season leading MSU’s program, but it is one even his young players – all of whom were born after Knight left Indiana in 2000 – understand the significance of.
“He’s gonna downplay regardless, that’s kind of the guy he is,” sophomore Coen Carr said Monday. “We kind of have made a little pact or whatever, so it means something to us. It means a lot to us and to the coaches, we definitely are thinking about it. But we still want to go out there and win the game and do what we need to do.”
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Tipoff is 9 p.m. Tuesday, and the game will not be televised but streamed only on NBC’s Peacock app.
While Izzo mostly has tried to keep his focus pointed toward this year’s team, which is off to the program’s best start since 2017-18, he said he allowed himself time – during and after Saturday’s epic 86-74 comeback win over Oregon – to be in the moment. That partly came from celebrating his 2000 national championship team during an alumni reunion weekend, but it also stems from both being on the precipice of more history and soaking in the atmosphere he’s helped create inside Breslin Center since beating Knight’s Hoosiers in his Big Ten debut Jan. 6, 1996.
“When I was standing there with about 30 seconds left (Saturday),” Izzo recalled Monday, “I did an Al McGuire. I just kind of looked up at the place and I said, ‘Wow.’”
He also reflected on his relationship with Knight, who died Nov. 1, 2023, and called the three-time national champion coach “the standard” for winning in their profession.
“I have memories of him kind of sneaking up on me my first game down (at Indiana) and telling me how bad the officials are going to be. And he did it right in front of the officials – and the four of them laughed, and I was scared to death,” said Izzo, who is 21-2 at Breslin all-time against the Hoosiers. “Of course, the first win was against them, and we weren’t that good and we found a way to win that game. That was a great memory. And probably one of my best memories is when we beat him down there the year we won the championship. And he told me that we were good enough to win a championship after the game, and he was great about everything.”
The Spartans (19-4, 10-2 Big Ten) on Saturday shook off the lingering lag from the two-game lull in Los Angeles, where they dropped their first two conference games of the season at USC and UCLA. With Mateen Cleaves, Jason Richardson and the rest of the 2000 team behind the bench urging them on, MSU rallied from a 14-point halftime hole to overtake the Ducks and pull Izzo into a tie with Knight, who coached at Indiana from 1971 until his dismissal in 2000, then spent his final seven seasons at Texas Tech.
Jason Richardson’s son, Jase, scored a career-high 29 points as Izzo’s team pulled off the comeback despite being without point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. and big man Xavier Booker, both of whom were out due to sickness. Jaden Akins, who finished with 10 points and a momentum-swinging 3-pointer and alley-oop dunk during the Spartans’ put-away punch to Oregon, also was under the weather, and Izzo said his senior captain did not practice Sunday but was expected back Monday.
Izzo expects his 10-man rotation to be back to full strength Tuesday against the reeling Hoosiers (14-10, 5-8).
Indiana, coming off Saturday’s 70-67 home loss to No. 17 Michigan, has dropped five straight and seven of its last eight. In that stretch, the Hoosiers are getting outscored by nearly 10 points and giving up 80 points a game while allowing opponents to hit more than 38% from 3-point range and make nearly 47% of their shots. Mike Woodson, one of Knight’s former players, announced last week he would step down at the end of the season after four unceremonious years as head coach.
Still, Indiana knocked off MSU to close the regular season last year, 65-64, at Assembly Hall in their lone meeting of 2023-24. It was the ninth meeting out of the last 14 between the schools decided by 10 points or fewer and the seventh determined by six or less.
Izzo sees plenty of talent back from a year ago – including 6-foot-9 forwards Mackenzie Mgbako (13.3 points/five rebounds) and Malik Reneau (12.3 points/5.4 rebounds) – that’s been supplemented by 7-foot Arizona transfer Oumar Ballo (13.7 points/9.6 rebounds) and 6-3 guard Myles Rice (11.1 points), a Washington State transfer. And his focus remains on the Spartans chasing an 11th Big Ten regular-season title that would tie him with Knight and former Purdue coach Ward “Piggy” Lambert for the most in league history.
“With Mike and all that’s going on, it’s obvious that there’s a lot of news,” said Izzo, who is 29-19 all-time against Indiana. “But it doesn’t change that this is and was said to be the team, with Oregon, picked to win it. They were very talented team. That talent has not changed. They have struggle as of late, but every loss seems to be a close loss.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tom Izzo, Michigan State host Indiana with Big Ten wins record in site
