EAST LANSING — Tom Izzo took only a few seconds to point the finger for Michigan State basketball’s Tuesday night loss to Indiana directly at himself.
The 30th-year Hall of Fame coach’s admission after practice Thursday was nothing new. Izzo has preached accountability with his players for years and thrust it onto himself as warranted.
Rewatching the 11th-ranked Spartans’ 71-67 stumble against the Hoosiers, the third loss in MSU’s past four games, only reinforced Izzo’s belief in his role with his team’s struggles against a zone defense and full-court press.
“I took responsibility that night. I take more responsibility (after watching the tape),” Izzo said. “(The Hoosiers) played 4% zone the whole year. They played 90% after we got up 20-8. They adjusted. We adjusted, but we didn’t adjust good enough, and that falls on me.
“I’m the first to, at least behind the scenes, blame a player for something if they didn’t do it. But I also think my job is to put players in a position to be successful. And we fell a little short on that.”
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MSU (19-5, 10-3 Big Ten) travels to Illinois for a Saturday night showdown at State Farm Arena. Tipoff is 8 p.m. (Fox), with the Spartans looking to sweep the Illini (17-8, 9-6) after a thrilling 80-78 home win Jan. 19.
After building the 12-point lead against Indiana, Izzo’s offense stagnated when the Hoosiers deployed a 2-2-1 full-court press to slow down the Spartans’ fastbreak, and struggled to solve their 2-3 half-court zone with outside shots continuing to draw more iron than net. MSU went 4-for-23 from 3-point range and fell behind by as many as nine points before mounting a furious yet eventually fruitless comeback to get within one as Indiana held on by making 9 of 10 free throws in the final minute.
The Spartans’ first home loss of the season dropped them into third place in the Big Ten, two weeks after sitting at the top at 9-0. They understand that with seven games remaining in the regular season there can’t be many more slip-ups to contend for Izzo’s 11th conference championship.
“At the end of the day, we’re still 19-5. We did indeed win 19 games, and we still have a lot of season left,” redshirt freshman point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. said Thursday. “No one’s perfect, no one’s gonna be undefeated. You win games, you lose games. We didn’t play as well as we we needed to to win the last game. And we know that. So that game is over. We got a big game on Saturday that we’re trying to win, and we just got to keep moving and keep rolling.”
While looking ahead to Illinois, Izzo also was equally as reflective of Tuesday’s loss and the challenges opponents are starting to present his Spartans as the degree of difficulty increases with each game. He outright dared more teams to take Indiana’s approach — “Am I worried about zone? I hope we get zoned 40 minutes on Saturday. How’s that? That’s how worried I am about it.” — because he put the onus on himself for the mistakes and the ability to correct them. That included two planned practice sessions for Thursday in preparation for the Illini, since MSU had the day off of classes to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the shooting on campus.
And if opponents do deploy more zones? “Bring it on,” he defiantly implored.
“(The players) didn’t mess up. I messed up,” Izzo said. “We did not cover it. We did our normal five minutes of zone (in practice), because usually against a team this late in the season, you’ve gone 23 games, you played 4% zone, you don’t. And then within that, we still knew what we were doing. We missed some good shots, and I didn’t think we did a good job getting the ball where we needed to. We were in enormous foul trouble. We had people all in different positions.
“Call them excuses, call them the truth. I don’t really give a damn what anybody thinks. I’m just telling you, I’ve already owned up to that.”
It’s a level of admission and accountability Izzo’s players respect hearing from a coach, let alone a legend who remains stuck in a tie with Bob Knight for the most Big Ten conference wins in history at 353.
“He does that all the time,” sophomore Coen Carr said. “He’s gonna tell us when we mess up, but he’s also gonna tell us when he makes a mistake. It’s not gonna be too often when he makes a mistake, and he’s gonna tell us and let us know that he did. So just having a coach that’s able to take accountability, it shows us how we can be better with taking that accountability on our side.”
That two-way communication remains one of Izzo’s strongest traits as a coach. And why, with one more win, he will break the tie with Knight. And with another Big Ten regular season title, he’ll tie Knight and Purdue’s Ward “Piggy” Lambert for the most in league history at 11.
“I can look at what we did. I can look at what happened,” Izzo said. “If you think I’m worried about losing my team because of a couple (losses), I’m not. If you think I think we’re not as good as I think we were, which wasn’t as good as (outsiders) thought we were. …
“We still have a chance (at the Big Ten title). We’re in a position where the ball is kind of in our court because of who we play at home. But there’s a lot of teams that have a chance right now.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Defiant Tom Izzo: Bring on more zone defense vs Michigan State
