Michigan State spent two grinding months crisscrossing the Midwest to earn a share of the Big Ten title.
Now the Spartans have to prove themselves all over again by winning three games in 48 hours in Chicago.
Is it any wonder head coach Tom Izzo is feeling ambivalent about the inaugural Big Ten conference tournament, which tips off Thursday in the United Center? Michigan State, which split the regular-season championship with Illinois, meets the winner of the Minnesota-Northwestern game at 3 p.m. Friday.
Izzo, in his third year as MSU head coach, has supported the tournament. But after watching his team lose an emotional 99-96 overtime game against Purdue in East Lansing Sunday, Izzo said, “If you could always figure that you were going to be champs or co-champs, maybe you’d never vote for the tournament because it’s not fair in that respect. Because you know everybody will judge you on the end.
“Hey, life’s not fair,” Izzo said. “Why should athletics be fair?”
Izzo’s main concern is making sure his team bounces back after its draining defeat.
“This team is not going to die because of this loss,” Izzo said. “We’re going to bounce back and hopefully make a run Friday and then make a run the week after that.”
Turn up the Vol-ume: Yes, Northwestern coach Kevin O’Neill is well aware that Tennessee is having its best season in years. But no, he’s not feeling the slightest twinge of regret about leaving Knoxville for Evanston.
The Volunteers never made the NCAA tournament under O’Neill, but they’ve made a strong case to draw an at-large bid out of the Southeastern Conference.
“I take satisfaction in knowing that I rebuilt that program,” O’Neill said. “We left that program in much better shape. The bottom line is that they have a better team than when we got there.
“People say to me, `Aren’t you upset that they’re winning without you?’ ” O’Neill said. “I don’t feel one bit of remorse. I have a terrific job here. We’re going in the right direction here too.”
Maize and Blues: Michigan interim coach Brian Ellerbe said he hopes his uncertain future with the school won’t affect his players this week. “I would hope that that doesn’t become an issue for us until the season is over,” Ellerbe said. “I just feel like it would be taking away from what our team is doing at this particular moment and what we can accomplish. There is no change and there hasn’t been a change. Since October from the beginning, there wasn’t going to be a decision until after the last game is played.”
Word out of Ann Arbor is that Ellerbe won’t be retained. But the last time Michigan went into the postseason with an interim coach–in 1989 under Steve Fisher–it won the national title.
Four in hand: Ohio State coach Jim O’Brien doesn’t like the chances of any of the six teams required to play in the first round Thursday. O’Brien is a veteran of the Big East tournament, having led Boston College to the title last spring in New York.
“I would virtually eliminate the teams that have to win four games,” O’Brien said. “Last year at Boston College, we had to win three games, and we had some veterans and some depth, and it was really a struggle.”
Iowa’s Tom Davis, who also coached at Boston College, isn’t so sure. Davis said he wouldn’t be surprised if a team made a run out of the first round. Lower seeds “play more out of desperation,” he said. “Teams that know that they’ve got (an NCAA tournament berth) locked up and know where they’re going next week, maybe they aren’t as desperate.”
Pur-doom? The last thing Purdue needed this week was news that the NCAA had decided to conduct a full investigation into alleged rules violations by the men’s basketball program.
The NCAA typically begins by announcing an inquiry and upgrades to an investigation if it finds compelling evidence of violations. In Purdue’s case, the NCAA is looking into a $4,000 personal loan by a Lafayette, Ind., bank to a recruit who had signed a letter of intent. That would be a violation if, as alleged, the bank officer was a Boilermaker booster who did not expect the loan to be repaid.
There are also allegations of improper recruiting contacts by head coach Gene Keady and his ace recruiter, assistant Frank Kendrick.
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The Boilermaker basketball office was quick to issue denials this week.
“I don’t pretend to be a perfect person, but I have never deliberately broken a rule or tried to gain an unfair advantage in recruiting,” Kendrick said in a statement. “I don’t know why these allegations have been made, but I’m confident that when the truth comes out, everyone will know that I have done nothing wrong.”
Speaking of recruiting: The NCAA is considering adopting rules aimed at reducing the time spent on summer basketball recruiting and the influence of street agents who try to represent prep stars in the recruiting process.
“We want to send a strong message to some of those involved in the summer camps that the high school and college communities intend to be more fully engaged in the basketball recruiting process,” South Carolina Athletic Director Mike McGee, who chairs the NCAA’s recruiting subcommittee, told the NCAA News.
One measure would cut the summer evaluation period to 14 days from 24. Another would bar college coaching staffs from “having telephone contact with individuals who are involved with prospects in non-scholastic basketball activities between April 1 and Aug. 1.”
Loosely translated, that means recruiters wouldn’t be able to talk to the people who often try to act as middlemen between the colleges and the athletes.
They’re history: O’Neill chortled at the suggestion that the Northwestern-Minnesota Big Ten tournament opener at 1 p.m. Thursday will make history.
“I don’t know how historical that game will be,” O’Neill said. “We opened the Kohl Center (at the University of Wisconsin) and scored 33 points. I don’t know how historical that was.”
There figures to be some empty seats for the opener, but not for when things get interesting. Still, there are several hundred 300-level all-session tickets available at the United Center box office.
Knight time: Indiana coach Bob Knight was asked whether conditioning would play a role in the tournament’s outcome. Knight said it would, and then speculated that it would affect everyone but the referees.
Knight sarcastically suggested that referees must be superhuman.
“Referees work five days in a row, six days in a row,” Knight said. “I mean, these guys have got to be the most superbly conditioned athletic participants in the entire world.”
That was a slap at Big Ten referees who work games in other conferences, a practice allowed by the Big Ten but frowned upon by the General.
Knight time II: Knight to a Peoria reporter who asked if he was happy with Peoria product A.J. Guyton, last year’s Big Ten rookie of the year: “I really don’t think that Guyton has had the kind of development that we would like for him to have, particularly defensively and handling the ball. I think that Guyton has a long, long way to go to be as good as his athletic ability would allow him to.”
Guyton finished eighth in the conference in scoring with 17.1 points a game and ranked third in three-point field-goal percentage at 46.6 percent.