Wednesday Final Four Commentary
Andy Glockner, SI.com: Tom Izzo is the best college basketball coach in America. Relax, North Carolina and Duke fans. No one’s slighting your leading men or their career accomplishments. We’re talking about right now, this very moment, two days after Izzo pulled off the near-impossible and made Michigan State’s three-year turn-of-last-decade run now look more like the rule rather than the exception. Think last season’s dramatic push to the national title game in Detroit with a youthful roster was stirring? This year’s Spartans have overcome a leadership void, player-coach discontent and a back-stiffening gym-floor sleepover in addition to the late rash of injuries. Their quartet of NCAA tournament wins are highlighted by a crucial lane violation, a buzzer-beating three and the country’s largest temporary (and most loquacious) point guard dropping a delicious dime that helped beat Tennessee. And let’s be honest: On the list of legendary college basketball settings, how long after Westwood, Lawrence, Chapel Hill and Durham would it take to finally get to East Lansing? Izzo doesn’t get enough credit for the level of talent he brings in, considering he’s selling kids on winters in central Michigan. Meanwhile, Roy Williams’ office phone has a golden arches insignia on it.
Matt Norlander, The Dagger: [Butler] is allergic to losing. It’s H-A-R-D to go 32-4 in D-I. I hope you can understand just how hard, even when playing in a conference like the Horizon, which isn’t such a shabby cast of characters. Yet Butler has done it and managed to keep a winning streak going that’s now stretched to 24 games. Say what you will about streaks and strategies and the like, but the point is this team has developed a sick habit of finding how to win and doing it their way. That’s the important thing to realize. Butler isn’t winning games by being a chameleon. No, it’s keeping opponents below 60 points (that’s happened seven games in a row and 13 of the last 14) and using man-to-man defense that would make any old-school coach blush. Speaking of that defense, while we can talk about Matt Howard, Gordon Hayward and Shelvin Mack — the three primary offensive options for Butler — it was Shawn Vanzant and Ronald Nored who, in my mind, stole the show in Salt Lake City. Both guards got in the grills of, arguably, the best backcourt in the country. Denis Clemente and Jacob Pullen combined for two points in the first half of the regional final. That anemic performance was unseen from K-State this season.
Andy Staples, SI.com: That day, senior Brian Zoubek replaced sophomore Miles Plumlee in the starting lineup at center. The 7-foot-1 Zoubek, long considered a solid rotation guy but not necessarily a key cog, scored 16 points and grabbed 17 rebounds (eight on offense) in 22 minutes and led the Blue Devils to a 21-point win. The moment was critical for Zoubek, who had the ability but lacked confidence, and for Duke, which had the ingredients to build a championship but had yet to hit upon the proper recipe. Finally, master chef Krzyzewski had discovered the correct mix. Lead with a heavy helping of Zoubek and power forward Lance Thomas, then inject the athletic Plumlee brothers, Miles and freshman Mason, when the other team’s big men have grown weary of wrestling with Zoubek and Thomas. Early in the NCAA tournament, Krzyzewski conceded that Duke’s quartet of bigs — not big three scorers Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith — were the difference between a team capable of making the Final Four and one that wouldn’t last past the second weekend. Duke’s past few teams have had plenty of scorers, but they lacked the willingness or the ability to pound opponents in the paint.
Mike DeCourcy, The Sporting News: With the exceptions of the game that won them the 2010 Big East championship, and the one that got them to their first Final Four in two generations—and, if things go just right, the two that will lead to their first-ever NCAA title—the most memorable basketball game involving these West Virginia Mountaineers was one almost nobody got to see. It was two summers ago, pitting members of coach Bob Huggins’ first full recruiting class at WVU against the veteran players who’d been brought to Morgantown by previous coach John Beilein. And the word “against” probably is an understatement. “We hated them,” said forward Wellington Smith, one of the Beilein holdovers. Through Huggins’ first season at West Virginia, Smith and his teammates heard repeatedly from Huggins about how he was going to get “my guys” into the program and fix everything that seemed wrong. It might not surprise you to know Huggins is not above playing mind games to motivate his players. “He always says things to get under our skin, make us work harder,” Smith said.
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I don’t think Izzo would have had a season like Roy had this year, not with all the talent the Tar Heels had on that roster.
Maybe not, but:
1. Roy is 4-1 lifetime against Izzo.
2. He’s 4-0 against Izzo since coming to UNC.
3. Only one of the four was a home game for UNC, two were virtual road games.
4. Those four include a Final Four game and a national title game.
5. The average margin of victory in those four games is over 18 points.
6. Even as bad as UNC was this year, they still beat MSU.
Izzo’s the better X’s and O’s guy, I don’t deny that, but when he goes head to head with Roy he loses. Simple as that really.
Oh and for the record, the talent level for this UNC team wasn’t as high as people have made it out to be. People always quote the McDonald’s AA thing, but that’s misleading.
You’re a Duke fan, so I think we both know how the McDonald’s AA deal works. There have been recruits for both of our schools that would not have been named to those teams if they had committed to, let’s say, Minnesota. I really like the kids, but the Wears were not ranked close to the top 24 high school players by any scouting service I’m aware of. Just as an example.
I don’t think head to head is a good measure of two coaches. If teams are equal in talent, sure, but I don’t remember the last time MSU has had the kind of talent UNC has year in and year out. To me, Williams is the better recruiter and Izzo is the better coach.
As for the Wear brothers…
http://scouthoops.scout.com/a.z?s=75&p=9&c=11&cfg=bb
&sFirstName=&sLastName=wear&yr=2009
They were ranked #13 and #14 by Scout.com, and were #59 and #60 on Rivals. They were both given 4-star ratings on Rivals. Also, Henson (5-star) was ranked #5 and Strickland (4-star) #34.
http://rivals.yahoo.com/basketballrecruiting/basketball/recruiting/
rankings/rank-rivals150/2009
ESPN had them ranked: Henson (6), Strickland (27), McDonald (32), Wear (36) and Wear (37).
I don’t know too many schools with five recruits in the top 40-60 that are complaining about talent.
That’s #13 and #14 at PF, they were #55 and #56 overall. Besides, you act as if Izzo’s doing this with a bunch of scrubs. There isn’t a player on that team getting significant playing time that wasn’t at least a 4* recruit coming out of high school.
Scout’s the way to go for basketball rankings incidentally. Rivals for football, Scout for basketball.
In any case separating “recruiter” and “coach” at this level has always struck me as silly, since recruiting is in fact a huge part of being a successful coach in college basketball. If you’re coaching a team that wants to win titles anyway. Maybe Roy doesn’t maximize what he gets out of the talent he recruits (though that’s debatable, he did just win 2 of the last 5 titles), but he’s not Rick Barnes either.
You’re right, those are positional rankings for the Wears. My bad. But that doesn’t change the fact that they had five top 60 players and the #3 recruiting class:
http://scouthoops.scout.com/a.z?s=75&p=9&c=14&cfg=bb
&yr=2009
I never said Izzo does it with a bunch of scrubs. Per Scout…
’09 UNC (#3) MSU (UR)
’08 UNC (#5) MSU (#17)
’07 UNC (UR) MSU (#9)
’06 UNC (#1) MSU (#12)
’05 UNC (#4) MSU (UR)
Scout.com seems to think that UNC has had the better run the last five years, talent-wise.
You have a tendency to argue points that I never made. You did it on the Duke thread and now you’re doing it here. I didn’t say that Roy Williams was Rick Barnes, I just said that Izzo is the better coach (for your purposes, I’ll use the word “teacher”) and Roy is the better recruiter. I’d also suspect it’s an easier sell to get kids to come to Chapel Hill and play for MJ’s old team than it is to get them to come to Lansing and spend the winter in Michigan.
Regardless, I stand by my thesis that Izzo wouldn’t have a season like Roy had this year if he had the same talent. UNC played very little defense all year, and that wouldn’t fly with Izzo (or with Coach K, for that matter). Izzo and Coach K might have had a few transfers after the season because guys weren’t happy with their PT, but they would have made the tournament. I have never seen a team with such little heart at MSU or Duke.
I don’t really recall arguing points you didn’t make in the Duke thread, I added a few of my own reasons and said that I didn’t buy the anti-intellectualism angle.
Same deal here, I’m not even really arguing with your overall point. I said explicitly that Izzo was the tactician, and I’ll say now that I agree that he’s the better teacher. My point was that the talent level isn’t all that different between the teams this year, so I do think the head to head from this season is a valid data point.
Not gonna argue the heart thing either. It’s been a disappointing season to be sure. That said, I don’t think all of it can be piled at the coach’s door. Some of it can, but Roy did just fine under similar circumstances in 2006. Maybe Izzo would have done better, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a given after spending all year watching this team. I don’t think the love child of Bobby Knight and Coach K could teach Will Graves to play defense.
Also, just listing a recruit’s ranking can sometimes be misleading. Sure Henson was ranked #5 and has a ton of potential, but he’s also someone that’s going to need to put on some weight to reach that potential. Ed Davis and Tyler Zeller were both highly rated recruits last season, but both missed significant stretches of time this season.
Dexter Strickland was highly rated coming into the year, but…..hmmm, actually if you can figure out why Roy didn’t play Strickland more over Graves I’d love to hear it.