If Jim Boylen is a god, then what does that make his former boss, Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo?
Probably a national champion. Again.
My friend and co-worker Chris Kamrani is going to try to lull you into a hypnotic dream à la Frost or Wordsworth and tell you that North Carolina will win the national championship this year. Maybe they should. I’m betting they won’t.
First of all, Izzo deserves as much8212;if not more8212;respect than Roy Williams and his powder blue crew.
North Carolina doesn’t even need to recruit anymore. You know those commercials where a guy whistles and all the fish jump in the boat? Yeah, Williams’ job is easier than that. Recruiting on Tobacco Road is like luring top football prospects to the SEC, times five. I’m pretty sure if you go to North Carolina, you get a free trip to the NBA8212;kind of like a get-out-of-jail-free card. Williams’ hardest job wasn’t getting players to come to North Carolina, it was getting the likes of Tyler Hansbrough and Ty Lawson to stay another year because winning an NCAA championship is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Izzo actually has to work for his recruits. He has reeled them in like a savvy championship bass fisherman and has almost the exact same résumé as that North Carolina coach.
That Roy guy has five Final Four appearances this decade and has one NCAA championship. Izzo also has five and an NCAA championship to his name in 2000.
None of this really has any bearing on what’s going to happen this season, but don’t be so quick to write off Michigan State.
Something that has plenty of bearing on this year’s National Championship is that Michigan will be the home team. Unless Villanova beats North Carolina, Michigan is going to be in road colors, but Ford Field (home to the NFL’s Detroit Lions) is about 75 miles south of the Spartans’ campus.
Although the venue is huge, Michigan State fans love their basketball and should have no trouble filling it. For a recent applicable example, the Michigan State women’s basketball team’s upset No. 1 Duke to get in the Sweet 16 was played on the Spartans’ home court. It was a sellout, by a long shot. That’s for a No. 9 seeded women’s basketball team. Can’t say I picture the same thing happening in Salt Lake City.
Ford Field is going to look like it has grass in the stands with all that forest green, but home court advantage won’t get Michigan State over the hump. Their slowed-down style of play, athletic defenders one through five and the guard play of sophomore Kalin Lucas is a recipe to beat any No. 1 seed in the tournament. They already knocked off the No. 1 overall seed Louisville, which is every bit as athletic and high-powered as North Carolina or Connecticut.
The other thing Michigan State has entering the final four is Goran Suton, a 6-foot-10 redshirt senior who is averaging 14.25 points and 11.5 rebounds during the NCAA Tournament. He might not scare the ultra-confident Hasheem Thabeet now, but let’s see how the 7-foot-3, 263-pound center feels after an Izzo-trained grit guru bodies him for 30 minutes.
As for my reasoning behind North Carolina not being crowned champ8212;too much pressure. This is a team expected to win and a team that will play tight because of it. North Carolina has the better players, but there are at least two programs with better teams.
Michigan State is one of those teams, and they’re built on defense, athletes and slow but steady offensive execution. It is also a team that knows it can play with anybody, which is why I’m picking it to be cutting down the nets in a place that has no business holding a basketball tournament.