EAST LANSING – Bucky McMillan brought his ornery Bulldogs to Breslin Center on Tuesday night looking for far more than a payday for Samford’s athletic department.
He wanted a win, like every coach and competitor at every level does. But the architect of the physical and high-intensity “Bucky Ball” system also needed to learn some things about his players on a multitude of fronts, regardless of the outcome.
Sound familiar? It should. It’s a blueprint Tom Izzo has used for 30 years as Michigan State basketball’s coach.
“We got the game, but it was difficult,” McMillan said after Samford fought like a pack of junkyard dogs in the Spartans’ eventual 83-75 win. “It’s difficult to schedule these days with all the analytics, so it kind of takes a coach that isn’t afraid to play. And that’s Coach Izzo – he’s not afraid to play anybody.”
Anyone, anytime, anyplace. It’s a phrase deeply baked in MSU’s DNA under Izzo. But those three words all have an end result in mind: Playing in March, in the NCAA tournament, surviving and advancing to the Final Four.
Izzo knows games against tough opponents sharpen his team for Big Ten play as well wherever they’re set to play. See going on the road to face Wright State in late 1999, losing there without Mateen Cleaves, and then going 13-3 to win a third straight regular-season conference crown and going unbeaten in capturing both the league tournament title and Izzo’s lone national championship.
In some ways, mixed among the visible star-power brands of college basketball, Izzo’s early November and December schedules always have had better-than-anticipated matchups. But in recent years, he said he has started trying to refocus those home games against higher level competition such as James Madison last year and Samford on Tuesday.
“What we tried to do this year – we got a couple more coming up – I never was happy with our ranking at the end, because I always thought we played a tough schedule,” Izzo said of why he agreed to face the Bulldogs. “You play three or four teams (because) you have to play somebody at home, so we said we gotta upgrade a little bit in the mid-major deal. This was a hell of an upgrade. I give them a lot of credit. I think they’re gonna be really good.”
Samford won back-to-back Southern Conference championships the past two seasons and is 81-43 since McMillan took over in 2020. The 41-year-old McMillan, who in 2018 was the National High School Coaches Association boys basketball coach of the year. His team last year opened with losses to Purdue and VCU before ripping off 17 straight wins. The Bulldogs eventually lost a 93-89 thriller to Kansas in the NCAA tournament first round to finish 29-6.
McMillan said these games are beneficial to both players and coaches as blueprints for what needs work in the aftermath. Something he feels is similar for MSU.
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“You kind of find out your weaknesses,” McMillan said. “If you just play a weak schedule, you don’t find out your weaknesses until it’s too late, right?
“You’d rather do it early than late. I know versus Kansas, we had learned a lot when we played Purdue last year early and got smoked, and we learned a lot from that game. So then when we were able to play Kansas at the end of the year, we were significantly better and were probably a play away from being right there to win the game.”
MSU (4-1) now hits the road to potentially face some of those bluebloods in next week’s three-day Maui Invitational, which begins with a 5 p.m. Monday opener against Colorado (ESPN2). The Buffaloes (4-0) have yet to play a major-conference opponent, while the Spartans will see how much facing No. 1 Kansas followed by tough home tests against Bowling Green and Samford sharpened them for their first tournament setting.
“I think we’ll reap the benefits quickly,” Izzo said. “I know Colorado, the next team we play, presses some. This game will help us. I hate to admit it, but you play these games and everybody (fans) just wants the Kansas games.”
Senior guard Jaden Akins, who scored a career-high 25 points, said “for sure” that the Spartans came out of facing Samford as a tougher team than they entered the game.
“This is two games in a row when a team has gotten up on us big early,” he said. “So just showing our resilience and having to play somebody that’s pressing us the whole game and pressuring us, I feel like it’s gonna be big for us, because most teams just play in the half court.”
McMillan said the in-your-face style of defense has helped his program and also been a reason most major schools have bypassed bringing Samford in for a game. A predicament Izzo navigated during the early years of his tenure and the rise of MSU into a national power with eight Final Fours since 1998.
“I think the reason Coach Izzo’s teams are so good when it matters – in basketball, we know it’s a tournament sport, and he focuses on the long game always. And that’s why they keep getting better,” McMillan said. “They keep playing in these in wars and they focus on the long game, and they know that it matters most in March. And that’s why he’s been one of the best coach to ever coach the game, he keeps his eye on what matters.”
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 basketball will benefit from tough scheduling
