Tom Izzo’s coaching tree is growing (if you count former players).
Michigan State’s head coach has often been criticized for having a lackluster coaching tree but Mark Montgomery is doing pretty well at Detroit Mercy and Tom Crean had some incredible years at Marquette and Indiana before fizzling out and retiring to the media side of things. We also can’t forget Jordan Ott who is the Phoenix Suns’ head coach and spent time at MSU as a grad assistant.
Some former players who have branched out and have made names for themselves in the coaching ranks — some have even joined Izzo’s staff — have been guys like Matt McQuaid, Austin Thornton, David Thomas, Goran Suton, Tum Tum Nairn, Joey Hauser, and now another name has entered the mix: Thomas Kithier.
While Kithier was in the coaching ranks last year under Dwayne Stephens at Western Michigan, getting hired at another school proves that he wasn’t just a familiarity hire. That helped, but that wasn’t the only reasons Stephens hired Kithier.
Now he’s joining the Utah State coaching staff after leading the Broncos to the fourth-best rebounding number in the MAC this past season as well as the third-best offensive rebounding team in conference play. That was his calling card at Michigan State in very limited action.
In fact, Kithier averaged 3.2 rebounds in just over 12 minutes as a sophomore and 2.5 rebounds in 10 minutes per game as a junior. That may not seem like much, but if he played as much as the starters, he would have been somewhere in the 7-10 rebounds per game range.
Kithier will be a video coordinator and assistant coach at Utah State this season.
Michigan State fans had strong opinions about Thomas Kithier
Kithier was a four-star recruit in the 2018 class and he came in with Foster Loyer who was supposed to be a breakout star in East Lansing despite his small frame.
Unfortunately, that duo never really worked out and fans bashed Kithier for being kind of a wasted spot on the offensive end and he wasn’t quite good enough defensively. He got beat quite a bit on the defensive end and the only way he made up for his deficiencies was with his rebounding.
Some Spartan fans were a little too harsh on him before he eventually transferred to Valparaiso where he had to retire early because of a back injury. He averaged 10.1 points and 6.6 rebounds at Valpo.
While he wasn’t the biggest fan favorite in East Lansing, no one had anything bad to say about him as a person or teammate. He was always willing to help the team get better and that departure following his junior season was mutual and things ended on good terms.
It’s good to see him back with the game he loves as a coach.
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