Michigan State Basketball: Future effects of recruiting jump
By Ian Olsen
Witnessing Tom Izzo finally able to stack a Michigan State basketball recruiting class should scare many, considering implications if the trend continues.
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Izzo is a master at coaching winning basketball with whomever he’s got. We’re used to seeing coaches such as John Calipari at Kentucky and Mike Krzyzewski at Duke pile wins with their respective teams, but they do so at programs where NBA-level talent is commonplace. Izzo takes any team to greatness.
Recruiting is considered a facet of a coaching ability, so Cal and Coach K earn merit for landing those players. Many have doubted Izzo’s recruiting skills, particularly after major misses recently.
Well it appears Izzo has figured it out: high school standouts Cassius Winston, Josh Langford, Miles Bridges and Nick Ward comprise the coach’s loaded 2016 recruiting class, the best of his career. Izzo and Michigan State are also among contenders in the race to land top 2016 recruit Josh Jackson.
The program’s unfailing success has made for sufficient recruiting in the past. But new factors have bumped Spartan recruiting up to tier one, molding it into a spectacle able to snag superstars:
- Striking new basketball offices and practice facilities, adorned with Spartan stars painted on the walls, draw the gazes of high school recruits and lead them to ponder earning their place on the wall.
- Reaping the fruit of the football program’s respected reputation, the team grants recruits unforgettable experiences at Spartan Stadium. No other basketball program has the advantage of bringing recruits to nationally hyped games of a dominant football team. Winston committed to Michigan State after the four recruits bonded at the Spartan win over Oregon on Sept. 12.
- Committed recruits are more frequently recruiting one another. After Ward committed, he immediately began persuading other top targets to join him in East Lansing. He was the first to spill anything publicly about Langford’s commitment (oops!).
- The team is now appealing to players who have already played together, and who plan to stick together in college after growing friendships and trust on the court. Bridges said he decided he would commit to Michigan State the moment his buddy Winston did.
- The team is now sending more players to the NBA. Five Spartans have signed with NBA teams in the last two years.
- The motive most mentioned by Spartan commits is the team’s family atmosphere, including former players who stay close to the program. Recruits are developing friendships with Spartan legend and NBA star Draymond Green, who recently signed an 86 million-dollar NBA contract and donated 3.1 million of it to MSU. Green shares with recruits why he reveres Izzo as a coach and mentor, and the development of skill and character he experienced at his beloved university.
Apr 3, 2015; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Michigan State Spartans head coach Tom Izzo during practice for the 2015 NCAA Men
What can Izzo do with loaded NBA-ready talent? It’s a trend not yet seen in his 20-year tenure.
The year Izzo became head coach was the first year a player skipped college to jump straight from high school to the NBA.
Kevin Garnett’s 1995 jump to the pros launched the 10-year skip-college era of 1995-2005, when a flood of high school stars forwent college ball to make a beeline for NBA cash.
Since 2005, players are required to be a year removed from high school prior to playing in the NBA, a rule enacted to quash the false impression of urban teens that ball skills are a guaranteed path to financial security.
Without the rule, the ten-year influx of NBA teens would now have doubled, and the last ten years of college ball would be unrecognizable. Michigan State may have accomplished less.
Who knows, Izzo may not still be in green and white, who built an elite program in East Lansing during the heart of the skip-college era, skyrocketed by four-year players unknown to NBA GMs for most of their college careers.
Kobe Bryant would’ve played at North Carolina, which he considered. Lebron James, Dwight Howard, Amare Stoudemire, Tracy McGrady, Jermaine O’neal, and Rashard Lewis would have played for college teams. Many who skipped college and proved average as pro ballers, and even NBA busts, would have first played a spectacular season or two in college beforehand (sorry Kentucky).
During the skip-college era, college programs were not able to thrive by simply stacking teams with McDonald’s All-Americans only there because they have to be.
In the latest year of our one-and-done era, seven players from Kentucky’s 39-1 squad entered the NBA Draft early, and yet the returning Wildcats may comprise the most talented team this upcoming season. The scheme resembles 12-year-olds at recess putting together the most talented five kids on one team to embarrass the other sixth graders.
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This model has never resembled Michigan State. While Izzo has been head coach, four players have left early to the NBA. But Michigan State is now assembling a top recruiting class, and could realistically see five players leave early to the NBA before the 2017-2018 season – more in two years than the previous 20.
Less to do with landing top high school prospects, and more to do with tenacity and resilience, the program has tightened a two-decade stranglehold on the Big Ten, especially on Michigan.
So now what? If Izzo gets into a Calipari-like rhythm of landing All-American recruits, what are implications?
Ironically, if the team’s 2008 recruiting class resembled the team’s upcoming 2016 class, Draymond Green may have never been a Spartan, a player who required more development out of high school and averaged three points his freshman season off the bench.
If the team’s recruiting trend continues, fans will no longer witness players like three-star recruit Travis Trice mature long-term and grow to be a team leader and star his senior season.
If the team had always landed loads of top prospects during our one-and-done era, there would not have been room for guys like Denzel Valentine, Drew Neitzel, Maurice Ager, Goran Suton and Travis Walton. As fun as it was watching these players progress over several seasons, fans would have instead witnessed high school superstars play one, maybe two, seasons and bail.
Izzo has needed to adapt his recruiting style according to the scene’s current environment, which minimizes parity and separates a select group of programs from the rest.
Mar 29, 2015; Syracuse, NY, USA; Michigan State Spartans guard Denzel Valentine (45) shoots the ball during the first half against the Louisville Cardinals in the finals of the east regional of the 2015 NCAA Tournament at Carrier Dome. Mandatory Credit: Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports
The 2016 star-studded Spartan freshmen could break convention and start a new trend, stepping onto campus as a starting lineup, enabling Izzo to beat traditional teamstackers at their own game, his philosophy never fading, but the team’s talent multiplying.
Josh Jackson told ESPN: “I pay attention to what he does with what he has. He’s in the Final Four almost every year, every other year. I just imagine, what if he got the top talent? Imagine what he could do with us.”
The Izzo Era will last many years to come; the coach signed a five-year extension last year that will only lead to another. And while he revels in wins and bleeds green, there will never be a satisfied bone in his body. He has led a top program with relatively lower-ranked recruiting classes. Making a routine of landing five-star recruits would banish doubt that his program would become the nation’s best.
If the team is without Jackson for the 2016-2017 season, it will likely win the Big Ten. If the team does land Jackson, it will resemble an NBA team and be the expectant national champion.
Overachieving based on coaching philosophy, Izzo has won 233 Big Ten games and seven Big Ten championships, reached 13 Sweet Sixteens, seven Final Fours and won a national championship.
Reaching Final Fours may soon be more expected and somewhat less fun – but fans may have to decide which they prefer.
Because if Izzo becomes a master recruiter able to land virtually whomever he pleases, his status as the stand-alone best NCAA coach will become indisputable, banners will more routinely rise in the Breslin Center, and Michigan State will have the best college basketball program for at least the remainder of Izzo’s legendary career.
Next: MSU Football: 5 takeaways from win over Indiana
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