Sports: Hoops Teams Look to Future
Tom Izzo looks to bring toughness to the program, which boasts two stellar recruiting classes the next two years. Coach P loses two prolific scorers but will welcome back plenty of talent along with a phenom who can dunk.
After his team’s first-round NCAA loss to George Mason, a mid-major that shocked everyone by making the Final Four, Tom Izzo vowed to return to the root principles of his program—toughness, rebounding and hustle.
“I have never been more disappointed in a loss with the second, maybe, being that loss to Wisconsin that cost us a Big Ten title,” sums up Izzo. “But I’ve never been more excited about the future.”
Indeed, MSU’s superstar coach can look forward to two stellar recruiting classes coming in the next two years. Arriving next year will be Tom Herzog, yet another Flintstone, seven-foot tall to boot, and two players who led their teams to the state titles in Ohio and Minnesota—Raymar Morgan and Isaiah Dahlman. And in 2007 he has the verbal commitments of three perimeter players who could comprise the most talented trio ever to arrive in one class at MSU.
The 2005-2006 season was a good one, though not by recent MSU standards. Under Izzo the program has reached a level where anything but a national championship feels like a letdown.
“A good job isn’t good enough here,” explains a rueful Izzo. “A good job is 18 or 19 wins. Twenty-two wins is a very good job. But we are looking for championships and Final Fours. That didn’t change and that didn’t change until the day I get thrown out of here. Good is not good enough.”
This year’s Spartans were ranked high in the pre-season—as high as No. 1 by one publication, in the top five by several others. Even with three potential future NBA players on the roster—MVPs Paul Davis, Maurice Ager and Shannon Brown—the team clicked only from time to time. It did not win a championship or advance past the first NCAA round of competition, losing to unheralded George Mason 75-65. The underdog Patriots were without their starting point guard and, with no starter taller than 6-foot-7, still outrebounded MSU 40-24.
“I have to figure out why a team would perform so poorly in areas that are so important to the program,” says Izzo, whose teams tended to lead the Big Ten in rebounding margin.
On the other hand, MSU did win 22 games, including wins against Boston College and Wichita State, both Elite Eight teams. MSU beat every ranked team in the Big Ten, including champions Ohio State in Columbus. MSU won its ACC Challenge game against Georgia Tech, and beat powerhouse Arizona in the Maui Classic. Its game against Gonzaga turned into a triple overtime classic, with Ager going mano a mano against POY-candidate Adam Morrison.
MSU boasted three potential future NBA players. They averaged more than 17 points each—the only such scoring trio in the nation. But the Spartans did not excel enough in many of the toughness areas, and as a result did not win as much as expected.
Although the season ended early for the women’s basketball team, with an 86-61 loss to Duke in the NCAA tournament, coach Joanne McCallie can bask in a few achievements this season—in both wins and attendance—and look forward to next season.
This season marked the end of an era for seniors Liz Shimek and Lindsay Bowen, two small-town Michigan athletes who earned All-America kudos and became the most prolific scorers in MSU history.
“You don’t replace a Shimek or a Bowen,” says McCallie of the duo whose 96 career wins top the record books. “But the team will evolve and make up for that production. The returning group can be much better, much more productive. And we’re already using that Duke experience to motivate us to get better.”
Indeed, the senior duo led MSU to its second most wins ever, with a 34-10 record. The most wins took place last year, when the team went 33-4 and coach Joanne P. McCallie was named AP’s National Coach of the Year. MSU returned to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen. Of its 8 NCAA appearances, four were under coach McCallie. Once again, MSU played a tough schedule and managed to beat some national powers, such as Rutgers (73-71 in East Lansing) and Oklahoma.
For the record, Shimek wound up with 1,780 career points, Bowen with 1,739—both averaging 13+ points per game as four year starters. Shimek won a number of Big Ten Player of the Week awards, while Bowen became MSU’s all-time leader in treys and three-point shooting percentage, records she then iced by winning the ESPN three-point contest in Indianapolis. They led MSU to a Big Ten championship, a Big Ten tournament championship, four straight NCAA appearances, one Final Four and two straight Sweet Sixteens. Both will have a chance at the next level, says McCallie.
Without her “Dynamic Duo,” McCallie looks forward to next season, when leadership will be provided by a senior class of Myisha Bannister, Rene Haynes, Victoria Lucas-Perry and Katrina Grantham. Haynes and Lucas-Perry boast experience and athleticism, while Aisha Jefferson looks like a star in the making. Plus, immediate help could come from two incoming freshmen—center Allyssa DeHaan of Grandville and guard Amanda Piechowski of Shelby Township. McCallie says that DeHaan, a towering 6-8 player who can, among many things, dunk the ball, “has unlimited potential.”
Spartan players continued to be great role models in the community. And, perhaps as a result, attendance continued to grow—averaging more than 6,700 a game at Breslin Center.
“Wow!” she exults. “The numbers were terrific. We want to continue to build on that.”
Those numbers probably helped MSU become a regional first- and second-game host for next year’s NCAA tournament. “Nobody knows about this,” says McCallie. “But this reflects what was done for this program by Shimek and Bowen, by Kristin Haynie, and by Syreeta Bromfield and Julie Pagel.”