Michigan State basketball embraces pressure of Big Ten tournament with NCAAs on the line

EAST LANSING — Tom Izzo looked around Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Indiana, on Sunday and saw the five national championship banners hanging, three of them won by Bob Knight.

In the former home of the Indiana legend — “the greatest place in the world for people who got on people,” Izzo would say — it was time for Michigan State basketball’s Hall of Fame coach to seek accountability from his team.

The Spartans blew another second-half lead after getting off to another ugly start. They again missed shots and again struggled to defend the interior. They again lost another tight game, this one by one point.

Moments later, Izzo would start calling out players and himself again. But he also emphasized that he did not want to put “too much pressure” on them heading into this week’s Big Ten tournament.

Too late. He didn’t even need to express it. They know what’s at stake.

Just an NCAA tournament berth, Izzo’s streak of 25 straight appearances in the tourney and their personal legacies.

AWARD SEASON: Big Ten basketball awards 2024: all-conference teams, player of the year, coach of the year

“Coach can say he doesn't want to put pressure — there's pressure in this program. It just is what it is,” senior Malik Hall said after practice Tuesday. “You don't come here and not feel pressure or not have any sort of pressure. Every day you wake up, there's pressure to perform to a certain level. So whether coach doesn't want to put pressure on us or not, there is pressure. And everybody knows that, everybody can feel that every day when you're in here.

“We just gotta be able to handle it. Pressure makes diamonds or it bursts pipes.”

The postseason journey begins in Minneapolis for No. 8 seed MSU on Thursday afternoon against No. 9 seed Minnesota. Tipoff between the Spartans (18-13, 10-10 Big Ten) and Gophers (18-13, 9-11) is noon at Target Center and will be televised on Big Ten Network. The winner will face top-seeded Purdue on Friday afternoon.

It is a chance for Izzo’s team to prove they belong in the NCAA tournament despite closing the regular season with four losses in five games, putting MSU closer the bubble for the second time in the last four years than almost any point in the previous quarter-century.

“I just keep saying if that pressure gets to you, why did you come here?” Izzo said Monday before practice. “That's what I say. I mean, you know what you were getting into. And that's what they all wanted, they want to get into that. They want to play the better teams. I think there is a problem right now, because the accountability isn't quite as good around the world, that little things don't matter quite as much. And that's when a free throw here or a layup there, it changes things a lot. So that's what we're trying to impress upon them.”

Coming off a road win and regular-season sweep of rival Michigan on Feb. 17, Izzo’s team looked to be rounding into form at the right time of year once again. It was their eighth win in 10 games after a sluggish start to both the season and Big Ten play. The schedule also favored MSU, with three of its final five games at home.

The Spartans, however, dropped the next two — both at Breslin Center — to Iowa and Ohio State, then a third straight at No. 3 Purdue. After beating Northwestern last week, giving MSU a shot to avoid the Boilermakers’ side of the bracket in Minneapolis with a win Sunday and seemingly putting the NCAA invite within reach.

Instead, the Spartans fell behind the Hoosiers by 16 points in the first half, rallied to take the lead and build a seven-point cushion after halftime, only to watch it evaporate again down the stretch — as has been the case far too frequently in losses.

And once again, after two months of must-win moments, MSU stares into the face of all the “white elephtants” Izzo likes to talk about.

The biggest one, with the most weight, is his tournament streak, an NCAA record by a coach at one school, which began in 1997 — in Izzo's third season as MSU head coach and before any of his current players were even born.

“We're not trying to think about it,” junior Jaden Akins said. “But it's always a thing every year, just because we've been every year. So obviously, we're trying keep that streak alive. …

“I feel like we've dealt with (pressure) pretty solidly. I feel like we also underachieved in some areas. But that's why we have a chance to turn it around.”

The Spartans opened and closed conference play with a 1-4 record in the first five and last five games. In between, MSU went 8-2.

Over the past four seasons, Izzo is 40-39 in Big Ten regular-season games and 77-52 overall. His most recent of eight Final Four appearances came in 2019. That downturn, based on the bar he set, has amplified the criticism of him and his players.

“I think you could ask anybody that's ever been in the program. Since coach has been coaching, there's always been pressure. Like, to ever even say that there's not pressure is something that wouldn't make sense. That fits for this program,” Hall said. “You can just go online and look — there's pressure. Every single day, either we're not living up to expectations or we're not doing as much as we should be. Not only just externally, but internally.

“You feel a certain pressure to perform here. You have to be at a certain level when you're in this program, you have to play at a certain level when you're in this program.”

Which makes the Big Ten tournament vital to stabilizing and solidifying an NCAA invitation (assuming the Spartans don't win it and earn the league’s automatic berth).

MSU was lower than a 5-seed only three times over the first 22 years of the Big Ten tournament’s existence. Over the past four years, Izzo’s teams have had his three lowest seedings in the tourney — No. 9 in both 2021 and ’22, then a 4-seed (and a double-bye) last year.

“Right now, you know it's one-and-done time, so we just got to make something happen and make a run,” Akins said. “I feel like this year, we've been in a lot of games, we lost a lot of close games. And I feel like we've pretty much been able to play with every team. So it's a clean slate right now. We're just looking forward to that.”

That is one sliver of hope heading to Minneapolis and whatever is beyond: Seven of the Spartans’ conference losses came by seven or fewer points. Of course, half of their Big Ten victories came by single-digit scores as well.

“In the Big Ten, it's usually around four- to six-point games, so you know it's always a couple of possessions,” senior point guard A.J. Hoggard said Sunday. “I think the Big Ten definitely does prepare us for things like when it comes tournament time, if we're blessed enough to get in.”

Hoggard’s last seven words sum up the Spartans’ situation and stress level succinctly.

MSU entered Tuesday at No. 24 in the NCAA’s NET Rankings, thanks to a 3-8 record in Quad 1 games, a 5-5 mark in Quad 2 games and 10-0 mark against Quad 3 and 4 opponents. The Spartans remain in the 68-team field for all 114 projections on bracketmatrix.com and are ranked No. 19 according to kenpom.com and No. 21 per barttorvik.com.

CBSSports.com's Jerry Palm has MSU in his bracket as a 9-seed but on the bubble, though above the line of teams heading to Dayton, Ohio, for the First Four. ESPN's Joe Lunardi similarly has the Spartans in the field but receiving one of the final byes to avoid Dayton, Ohio. (The Spartans played and lost in the 2021 First Four after escaping the bubble down the stretch.)

Hall, whose freshman year in 2020 ended with a Big Ten regular-season title and a postseason tournament cancellation, has been emphasizing to his younger teammates: “This is the time of year that we all look forward to.”

“This is what you've been watching since you were a kid. This is what you spent time in your high school classroom sitting there watching instead of doing schoolwork, you know what I mean? So just think about those moments,” Hall said. “We get so caught up in how everybody's saying we're doing this year and how we didn't meet the expectations and we didn't do this and that. But at the end of the day, this is farther than me personally I ever thought I would get as a as a basketball player when I was younger. So just being able to enjoy it.

“And not just enjoy it, but go into the moment and try to seize the moment and make the most of it. I think that's what I, personally, am going to try and express to everybody and make sure that, myself, I'm ready and prepared, so that coach doesn't have to bring all his energy and it's not solely on coach.”

Hall has seen his most recent MSU teams go deeper each season, from a one-game exit to a second-round spot the following year to making a run to the Sweet 16 last year that set up the Spartans’ championship goals for this year.

They opened the season in the top five, then tumbled with every loss, to being on the verge of leaving their fate to the NCAA selection committee.

“That's a lot of pressure. But at the same time, you're either gonna fold to it or it's gonna help you grow and it's gonna make you better,” Hall said. “I think at the end of the day, we still could be that same exact team that everybody expected. Anything can happen. We can hit a long streak and go all the way to the Final Four and win the national championship.

“You can't write us off yet, it's not over yet. As long as there's still time left and as long as we still have the will and the want to do it, I think anything is possible.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

Subscribe to the "Spartan Speak" podcast for new episodes weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts. And catch all of our podcasts and daily voice briefing at freep.com/podcasts.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball embracing pressure of big Ten tournament