Michigan State basketball's Tom Izzo hears the whispers. Can he quiet them once again?

Tom Izzo is aware of the discontent among Michigan State faithful. It’s hard to remember a time when it was louder.

Perhaps his first couple of years on the job?

Even then, it wasn’t like this. And as tough as that early stretch was, he’s never been questioned like he is now.

This is a difficult spot for the Hall of Fame coach. He’s taken MSU’s program to a place no one ever has; he’s in the actual Hall of Fame for a reason. Yet he’s hearing folks suggest it’s time to step aside. Or, worse, that the game has passed him by.

On Wednesday, Izzo told reporters he doesn’t see or hear what his players hear and see, meaning he’s not as knee-deep see into the criticism of his program as they are.

If we’re measuring by degree, then sure. But he’s seen and heard enough to have told reporters this Wednesday after practice:

“I didn’t forget how to coach, contrary to what most of our alums feel right now.”

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Most coaches who last as long as Izzo have heard a version of this toward the end of their career. Age is the easiest place at which to point.

When MSU lost to Iowa last week, it marked the fourth straight year the Spartans had lost at least 10 games, the first time that’s ever happened under Izzo.

Izzo, 69 and in his 29th season as head coach, said he stayed up all night earlier this week trying to figure out why Ohio State won, and why his team played the way it did, and why it’s having the season it is having.

“I’m looking at how we lost ... I was really disappointed in how we played. We didn’t shoot it well. Our defense wasn't awful, we didn’t play as well (on that end) in the second half. When you don’t make a shot, those things happen.”

Beyond that, he said, “I went through with my team every game we lost, how we lost them. Some at the free-throw line, some at the end. I blame myself and my point guard for that, (for losing games at the end.) You should be able to finish games.”

What did he come up with?

“I don’t think that much less of my team,” he said.

And?

“I don’t think they can’t accomplish some things.”

Of course he does. He’s a coach, and he’s led plenty of teams from tough times on tournament runs. It’s part of his reputation.

He sounds wearier these days though. Like when he said his team keeps digging itself into a hole after a stretch of good play, like it did last week when it lost consecutive home games after winning eight of 10.

“If I knew why, I would fix it,” he said.

He also said this:

“I cannot explain the last two games.”

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That’s disconcerting, obviously. He knows why his team lost, just not why it performed the way it did in the losses.

Against Iowa, the Spartans got outmuscled and outworked, especially inside. Against Ohio State, MSU got outshot in the second half, and outmaneuvered from the bench.

Fundamentally, MSU doesn’t have enough roster balance. This starts in the middle, where Izzo didn’t use the transfer portal to strengthen the center spot.

Even with his limited talent there, though, he hasn’t helped himself with his stubborn insistence on playing two non-shooters at the same time, and sometimes even three. After the Ohio State loss, former Michigan coach, John Beilein — now an analyst for the Big Ten Network — suggested that Izzo was leaning too heavily toward the centers.

“Sometimes you can be too big,” he said.

It wasn’t easy for Beilein to say this. He has developed a relationship with Izzo over the years, and he prefaced his comments on television by saying that Izzo was a great coach and that he’d lost to him more times than he’d like to remember.

Still, he said it. Because it’s true.

The Carson Cooper-Jaxon Kohler-Coen Carr lineup against the Buckeyes gave MSU’s guards almost no space to create or shoot. Xavier Booker, meanwhile, gave his teammates plenty.

The Spartans blew a 10-point lead in the second half. That blown lead coincided with Booker’s benching. Izzo argued Wednesday that the Spartans were getting pummeled on the boards early in the second half, and it's true, they were — OSU held a 9-2 advantage when Booker checked out with some 16 minutes left.

Rebounding is obviously important. Defense is critical. These are tenets for Izzo. Yet it still comes down to math.

Whatever Booker was giving up defensively and on the boards, he provided in spacing on the other end of the floor. And in a game when Tyson Walker and Jaden Akins were struggling to make shots, those two, and A.J. Hoggard, could’ve used the space to attack the rim. Just as Malik Hall could’ve used a clean block from which to post, without another big man dragging a defender near him.

There is no guarantee that more Booker minutes would’ve led to a win. And Izzo is right when he said Wednesday that his veterans — meaning his guards and Hall — couldn't make shots, and that he substituted based on the assumption that they would.

Yet Booker made a difference in the first half and deserved a chance to make one in the second after his initial benching. MSU couldn’t score. Booker was its best chance to correct that.

Izzo told reporters Wednesday that he didn’t go back to Booker because the Spartans were getting blitzed on the boards early in the second half. He wanted Mady Sissoko’s defense and rebounding down the stretch.

This isn’t unreasonable in a vacuum. But in a game when buckets were hard to get? Why not try something else?

MSU will have a difficult time beating Purdue this weekend. In fact, don’t count on it. The Spartans haven’t won there in a decade.

That leaves two games the following week: at home against Northwestern, at Indiana. Lose all three and the 25-year tourney streak would be in jeopardy. Lose two and it still might, unless the win is at Purdue.

A Big Ten tournament run would help, clearly, but no matter how it’s viewed, MSU is in danger of not making the Big Dance unless it figures out how to stop playing as it did at home last week.

That starts with Izzo. He is right when he says Booker wasn’t ready to play for most of this season. But Booker is ready now, and while Izzo deserves credit for Booker's development, figuring out how to use him the next few games is critical to whatever hopes MSU has left for this season.

Izzo’s had tough stretches before, including three straight double-digit loss seasons from 2002-2004. Yet he’s lasted this long because he’s always adapted.

It’s time to do it again.

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State's Tom Izzo hears the whispers. Can he quiet them again?