Tom Izzo: Michigan State basketball had cases but now 'COVID-free' as practice opens

Tom Izzo entered Year 26 as Michigan State basketball’s head coach reflecting on how much his mentor, Jud Heathcote, loved the first day of practice.

“I just got out of a staff meeting, and I got there early this morning,” Izzo said on a video call Wednesday. “And I said to everybody, I said to DJ (assistant coach Dwayne Stephens), 'You didn't remember this as a player, but this was Jud's favorite day.' It was his favorite day, and he loved to start a practice.”

Neither Izzo nor Heathcote ever dealt with the opening of a season quite like this one, though.

The Spartans started practice Wednesday coming off an unprecedented stoppage of last season and an offseason in limbo. They begin without an opening opponent, without a schedule and with a pandemic requiring coaches and players to focus on staying safe and responsible to keep COVID-19 from causing any further disruptions.

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All with about six weeks of lead-up to the NCAA’s start date of Nov. 25 to begin competition.

“It's been an incredible seven months for all of us. Not just our team, but you (reporters) and our country in general,” Izzo said. “And there's been a lot that's gone on. But I think when you start the season, it's an excellent chance to start moving forward.”

Izzo said his team “had a couple of cases” of COVID-19 that “set us back a little bit” after strong workouts in July and August. He did not specify if it was players or coaches or how many within the program dealt with the coronavirus.

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“But for the last two weeks, we've been kind of COVID-free, and we're making some progress,” said Izzo, who has been a staunch proponent of wearing masks since Stephens’ father died of the coronavirus April 1. “We're looking forward to trying to get back to some normalcy, is I guess the best way to put it. In doing that, I think we have to understand – and we will – that it's going to be our obligation to take care of ourselves the best we can. And that doesn't give you 100%, that everything will be right. But it gives you the best chance.”

The Spartans have a number of questions to answer coming off a third straight regular season Big Ten title, and a 22-9 season that ended abruptly in March when postseason tournaments were canceled. Replacing the contributions of Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman is crucial. And where is fifth-year senior Joshua Langford’s health, coming off two left foot surgeries that have kept him out of competition since December 2018? Izzo said Langford has not had many restrictions the past three weeks, but he is not ready to say the 6-foot-5 shooting guard is “over the hump” after having his return to the court shut down last fall before playing in a game.

“I think the hardest thing is making sure Josh doesn't try to get everything back in a week or in a month or two months," Izzo said. "And so we're really trying to work with our trainer and Josh and myself on how to balance everything.”

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The schedule is a work in progress. Kevin Pauga, one of MSU’s associate athletic directors and a former director of basketball operations under Izzo, is working on the Spartans’ schedule and helping out almost all of Division I to create theirs with the Faktor scheduling platform. All of it remains in flux as the season quickly approaches.

“There are some unknowns,” Izzo said. “Testing protocol and all that aren't defined yet. It's just the way it is. And what I'm telling my guys is we're gonna play games, and we're gonna play a bunch of good games. … But we don't know where we're playing. The only thing we know for sure 99% is we're playing Duke in (the Champions Classic). And other than that, there's a lot of gray area.

“It makes it hard on everybody. But for a player, we're just trying to tell them, 'You get as good as you can get, because no matter who we play, we've got to have our offense in, we got our defense in, we got to have our out of bounds plays.’”

That brings yet another coaching challenge Izzo and MSU have never struggled with – preventing apathy and frustration.

“And now we got six weeks, which is a long time, with no exhibition games,” he said. “You got nothing to look forward to, so I think coaches are gonna really have to balance what we do, players are gonna have to balance. But the nice thing that I've learned through this pandemic is when we're allowed to get the players back in the gym, that's their safe haven, that's their place.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari. Read more on the Michigan State Spartans and sign up for our Spartans newsletter. The Free Press has started a new digital subscription model. Here's how you can gain access to our most exclusive Spartans content.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball had cases, now 'COVID-free' as practice opens