Obviously, there’s some kind of fraternal thing there in EL that players find compelling. It’s hard for an outsider not to think of it as a bit of a protection racket with what we know of the misbehavior–sometimes criminal–of players there during Izzo’s tenure. There’s no doubt that Izzo has won–and I have a mild respect for any second-rank U that boxes above its academic weight in sports. But there’s some piece of it that eludes me, because I just often see Izzo get outcoached, too. Out-toughed, rarely, and that’s a (somewhat) admirable piece of it, too. What am I missing, though? Is it a little like some of these AAU coaches, who obtain benefits for kids and help them through the societal and developmental ropes? I know some of you posters DO have insight about this. . .
How much longer do we think Izzo will keep coaching? He’s pretty much the only coach MSU has had in my lifetime, so it seems like he will never leave. He’s 65 years old.
1-3 more years?
4-5 more years?
6+?
Sure. I think people here want to say that Beilein was significantly better at it though, since we’ve been ranking stuff this week, and I think that’s demonstrably true.
You can be demanding of your players without showing them up on national television. He hasn’t mastered that art.
I also think Izzo is a complete narcissist, and thinks every game is about HIM as a coach. So it’s an affront to him, and his success, when players don’t do the things he wants them to do.
I’m very glad JB and JH are not those type of people.
He’s absolutely recruited at an elite level. Certainly the best in the Big Ten by a landslide since say 1999 or so. Nationally, I’d say only Kentucky, UNC, Duke, and maybe Kansas have been better.
Forbes and Goins, absolutely.
Harris and Winston were five star recruits, and so was Payne. Those are the guys who are expected to become stars, especially after four years of college like Winston and Payne.
Costello? He was a top 50 guy, right? I mean, if we compare to Mo Wagner or DJ Wilson, his development wasn’t very good. I’d give JB much better odds of turning him into a pro.
Izzo has always suppressed playing time with his young big guys to try to get more years from them. Zach Randolph, Deyonte Davis, Jaren Jackson, and Payne - I really do think he “brings them along slowly” for a reason.
One of my theories is that Izzo is really good at managing individual players success and their success timeline. He is not trying to make them the best they can be as quickly as possible. He will hold them back here and there. Or not showcase them as it works to his benefit. Part of the equation is keeping them around for the maximum number of years even if keeping them around works against the players interest.
Totally agree. He does it by emphasizing defense. Now, I’m not suggesting defense is unimportant, just that really talented offensive guys should not be playing limited minutes because, as young players, their defense isn’t stellar. A guy like Nik Stauskas wouldn’t have seen double digit minutes for Izzo until he was a junior.
Cassius wasn’t a five-star FWIW. And guys who are ranked in the 30s are not guaranteed to become POY-type players. I get that five-stars are supposed to be good, but this idea that any player development is excluded because a guy was highly rated out of HS doesn’t make any sense to me. Go back and look at the 20-40 ranked players in each class, all sorts of misses in there.
He was ranked 89th… Mark Donnal was ranked 86th the next year. Costello turned into a really good player the last two years of his career.
I just don’t get the idea of knocking Izzo’s talent evaluation or player development when MSU was so damn good over the last decade. The fact is that Michigan and Michigan State were two of the best programs in the Big Ten over the last decade because they consistently recruited, evaluated, coached and developed better than the rest of the league.
And did Beilein “bring Mitch along slowly” or is just hard to play huge minutes as a freshman big man in the Big Ten?
I agree with a lot of what you’re saying here. But Mitch was clearly out of shape early on and when the season was on the line, he wasn’t on the bench behind Ben Carter otherwise that Final Four run never would have happened.
And Cassius certainly developed, but he also sat the bench as an incredibly gifted freshman (averaged 10 assists per 40 minutes and shot 38% from three) while MSU tried to play 5 on 4 with Tum Tum Nairn for 20 minutes a game.
There’s a middle ground between “Izzo really developed these horrible freshmen who weren’t ready to play” and “Izzo intentionally ruins his players!!!” Reality falls somewhere in the middle. He’s had a lot of guys who were very capable top 20-40 recruits as freshmen that he buried, and they ended up adding to their game and becoming pros. He’s also had freshmen play significant minutes right away too (Harris, Bridges, Aaron Henry come to mind).
The Ben Carter thing will always be hilarious. It still strikes me as a case of Izzo out-smarting himself or overthinking the situation more than trying to hold JJJ back.
Cassius didn’t play every minute as a freshman but he played a lot for a freshman who turned the ball over a ton. I don’t think it is fair to say he “sat on the bench”
My point about Mitch wasn’t that he should have played more or Beilein did something wrong… just that there are often normal and different reasons why 5 stars need development or take time to find their role.
Overall, I just think Michigan fans trying to shit on MSU’s player development take away from the actual point about how well U-M developed players.
Winston was the #29 guy in his class (RSCI).
It’s hardly surprising that after four years of college, he became a star.
Player development, to me, consists of a few things:
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Does the player outperform his ranking in college, or at least in the case of a five star, live up to it?
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Does the player make the NBA?
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How LONG does it take for the player to make the NBA?
Overall, I’d give Izzo a B/B+. Some very good success stories (Draymond, Valentine), several guys who lived up to expectation (Harris, Bridges, Winston), a few who regressed and did not make the NBA (Lucas, Appling, Raymar Morgan, Summers), and a few flops in terms of making the pros (Torbert, Marquise Gray, Lucious, Roe, Dawson).
As far as JB, as Gary Parrish has noted, no one has his track record of taking guys in the top 50-150 and turning them into NBA players.
I’d give JB a straight A.
I have a hard time with this. If the implication is that Korie Lucious (76th ranked recruit in his class) was a flop in terms of making the pros, what were these guys?
Kam Chatman, Zak Irvin, Zavier Simpson, Charles Matthews, Evan Smotrycz, Mark Donnal, Derrick Walton.
JB was incredible at identifying under the radar talent and getting them drafted. He had his misses too, although not many. But I think it’s unfair to hold players ranked between 50-100 as development failures because they didn’t become first round picks, no matter what program they came from.
The thing that struck me most about Lucious was his his downward trajectory in college. He had some real potential that seemed more squandered than not developed. I shouldn’t speculate but he always looked like someone who just finished smoking too much pot…
Well, for one thing, I thought Lucious was rated much higher, so that’s my fault. I remember him being in like the 40s. Maybe he dropped at some point. I guess we could substitute Kris Allen instead if we want.
Either way, maybe it’s not fair to hold the lack of pro development for those types of players against Izzo, but is certainly IS fair if we are comparing him head to head with Beilein, who has a phenomenal track record with those type of players.
I think Izzo has done a good job with player development (with the small caveat that it doesn’t usually occur as quickly as it does at many schools) and Beilein has done an exceptional job.
I thought they were going to win it all for most of the year. If I recall they started to fall apart a bit late and didn’t look good in the tourney at all. Temple should have had them in the second round and it wasn’t a particularly impressive temple team.
Then they ran into the worst possible matchup for their roster I remember in Syracuse in the sweet 16. Early in that game I knew they were toast. Cuse had so much size and length down low to combat zeller. They were daring them to shoot shots from the elbow and free throw area and the Hoosiers had no one to counter it.
Anytime Cody or anyone went down there they were rejected or couldn’t get a good look amongst the trees.
Christmas, keita, southerland, fair, Jerami Grant, and Coleman. All 6-8 or more and lanky. If I recall Christmas had an amazing game for cuse and really boosted his stock.
This is a good question. I just have a feeling that Izzo is going to have a “Bobby Knight moment” at some point that will signal the end for him. Plus I still think there are skeletons in the closet that could come resurface at some point.
I guess I don’t have a time frame but what I’m saying is when he goes I could see it not being completely his decision.
Player of the decade tomorrow. Any shot Burke could win it?
6+ he’s retiring there, and MSU hasn’t fallen off. He would need 3 bad seasons (6th or worse in the big ten) in a row to stop.