Best season ever for Izzo?

[Hermy]

Things I've learned tonight:

Barely beating Division II programs with the help of some questionable calls is part of being impressive

Coaches only control their programs when good things happen

Coaches do well to recruit players, but are not to be questioned if they lose those recruits

Coaches can do nothing to keep talent in their program from turning into

Coaches have no way of knowing guys who've been talked about leaving for other sports may need to be replaced

Tune in next week when Spartan slappies discuss how Napoleans finest moment may have been The Battle of Nations where he may have totally miscalculated his need for troops, he was able to be exiled to Alba and regroup stronger than ever.

[Jethro34]

Here's what I'm saying: exactly how many games has this team won that they weren't supposed to win? I would say Texas is the only game they were expected to lose. So winning one game that they were the underdog in annoints the man? Hardly. You may have a story here, and it might end up being the most impressive Izzo work in the end, in terms of getting the most out of what he had left, but like several have already said, that's only a possibility at this point and the team would have to fair quite well for it to be true. All this coming after perhaps the worst season of his career last year.

[Zip Goshboots]

And, if you say something like, "Best coaching job EVER!"--What is the measuring stick? He could go 15-13, and Sparties are gonna be burning couches all over the country because no one thought they could be "that good". Or, he could go 19-10, and get into the Tourney, and then The Sparties will probably burn down the Sears Tower. But I think either way the Sparties need to call their shot. State the parameters for "Best Season Ever".
Sweet 16? Win a Tourney game? Finish in the upper half of the Big 10? Izzo getting a guest shot on "Boston Legal"? Izzo and Shatner double teaming a blue chick from the planet Yippsodiddletron? Come on Sparties: Lay it out!
"Best coaching jobs ever" usually equate to a moral consolation prize, and can usually also be translated into the phrase: A Shitty Season.

[MoTown]

You showed how little you know with this post. Izzo lost Shannon Brown early to the NBA, lost Ager and Davis to the NBA (doesn't matter if they left after senior yr, still impacts team, lost Trannon to NFL prep, lost Rowley to moving on beyond bball. That is 5 guys and all of them played. 4 of them played significant minutes. Yet, you want them to come back and go to the final four this year. No wonder Michigan sucks at basketball, there fans don't even know the sport.

OH MY GOD YOU'RE RIGHT!!! That's exactly why Michigan sucks! Because of their fans!

You know, you always complain when someone else brings up Michigan in threads that are unrelated, but you LOVE to do it.

"Blah blah blah Michigan fans are stupid blah blah blah Michigan fans are turds blah blah blah Michigan fans are arrogant... etc"

[Jethro34]

Sure Izzo could have brought in a few good freshmen guards and had higher expectations this year, but he knew that the following crop of freshmen were much more talented. He planned his schollies so that he could bring in several more talented freshmen next year and more the following so that he could build a NC calibur team. Had he went your route, he would have missed out on somebody like Lucas/Summers/Allen because there wouldn't have been enough schollies.

Bullshit. The coach of a program only has so much control over who stays, who leaves, who verbals, who commits, etc...

Some things can be planned for, like Davis and Ager graduating (see the recruiting class of Herzog, Morgan and Dahlman) and some things can't exactly be planned for (see Brown leaving early or Devendorf backing out of his verbal or Cotton transferring or Rowley quitting basketball or Trannon deciding not to play hoops). You recruit these elite players when they're sophomores and juniors. When a sudden and unexpected need arises, contrary to your belief...a coach can't just up and go grab an elite recruit when he's a senior in high school.

Fact is, if Shannon Brown hadn't left a year early...MSU would be a top 15 program this year and you wouldn't be calling this year a hiccup or a blemish or whatever the fuck else you feel like calling it. But Brown did leave and FACT remains that Izzo is doing the absolute most with what he's got. His team is in the process of exceeding the expectations of every single preseason prognostication out there.

It has been an impressive display of pure coaching by anyone's definition.

Ok, I really must comment on a few things here, because like we always do, this conversation has become heavily skewed.
First Tre is talking about how Izzo planned his scholarships. First of all, Izzo could have done better the year before with his 2 schollies than to bring in Joseph and Walton. That was a horrible recruiting class and probably the biggest reason the team "has low expectations" this season. I don't care that it was only 2 scholarships, a guy like Izzo should be landing 4 star guys, anbd he got 2 three stars. That's a killer. Then, this past year he got 3 recruits. 2 are 4 stars but you're only expecting anything out of one of them, and then another 3 star. So that's a two-year run of recruits that could have been much better. The fact that YOU don't expect much of anyone other than Morgan (and the pleasant surprise of Walton and Joseph - it's THEIR contribution that probably sparked this thread in reality)

Now Jack. You talk of what can or cannot be planned for. First of all, this is college basketball. When your coach is so well known for making players better, you SHOULD be planning for any 5 star recruit to leave after 3 years. So they were lucky they even had Davis last year, and should have been expecting Brown to leave exactly when he did. Rowley and Trannon both should have been seniors last season so you should not be bitter about not having them. And how long has it been since Cotton transferred? Dude, there's dust on that argument. Devendorf backing out. Wow. Ok, so you have to give Michigan credit for any production that Crawford and Horford have made now, right? I'll tell you what Izzo didn't plan for. He didn't plan that Marquise would go from 5 star HS player to 2 star college player in two short years. But ultimately, who should have seen that coming and known from heavy recruiting and watching that it would have. Izzo. So that can be tied directly to expectations for this season. He's got a guy that could have been a 5 star stud playing his junior year right now. That's something to build upon, but it's something he doesn't have. So 2 substandard recruiting classes when 5 scholarships were in fact given out, combined with a 5 star who wasn't, are the reason there are few expectations. But should there be? Could there be? Absolutely. You can talk all you want about down years for elite programs, but at the end of the day those programs never have to climb their way barely into the top 25 in week 5 of the season.

[Zip Goshboots]

I think the best post on this subject was by the guy who said that when it comes to Sparties, the seasons that are bad are NOT the coaches fault (especially when it's the Midget of Iron Mountain), but the good seasons are ALL ABOUT THE IZZO, baby!

[Hermy]

How fucking drunk was I talking about the Battle of Nations? I appologize for that post, I can't read half of it. Its still better than Jack's post, but its awful.

[JackTalkThai]

How fucking drunk was I talking about the Battle of Nations? I appologize for that post, I can't read half of it. Its still better than Jack's post, but its awful.

Naw your's was worse. I could barely even comprehend your post. It was bad but don't worry about it...just don't use alcohol as a crutch. That's weak.

If you don't think there are things (especially with recruiting) that are out of a coach's control...then you are out of your fucking mind. lol

Unless your school's name is Duke or Carolina, you're going to have unforeseen pitfalls and stumbling blocks in maintaining a championship caliber product. And even those schools have their down years. You're an idiot if you think it's always the fault of the head coach and that those down turns are always correctable within a year's time.

But if you want to harp on Izzo's recruiting...that's completely fine but to be honest that's an entirely different discussion than the thread that Tre started. With your drinking problem though it's understandable why you're having a hard time figuring that one out. This thread is about what Izzo is doing with the current group of talent that he has to work with. A group that was preseason ranked in the 40's and 50's and a group that was never expected to be top 25 ranked at any point in the season. People were quite confident in calling a team led by Drew Neitzel, NIT caliber.

For whatever reason, it's not an overly talented group from a combine/measurable perspective. Morgan is probably the only pro prospect of the lot. And to have this team ranked and playing and functioning like they are...it's a credit to Izzo's pure COACHING abilities. Not recruiting abilities oh inebriated one....c-o-a-c-h-i-n-g. If you disagree with that. Fine. But you're dim if you do.

[Baker]

I love how Hermy claims he's a Spartan. That's the move of 12 yr olds on message boards. Sure you are Hermy! Were you drunk when you posted that too?

The response by the uninformed Michigan fans here is absolutely unreal to me. Taking bias to a new level. Can ya give a Spartan credit ONCE?!

Jethro: Your boy Tommy Amaker would LOVE to have Joseph and Walton. Joseph is a sophmore who is shooting lights out on a ranked team and Walton is a team captain and GREAT defender. How the hell is that a bad recruiting class? I understand saying he needs to get 4 and 5 star guys, but its what they do on the court that counts. I believe they are performing very well.

[Vinny]

Will you at least change the name of the thread if you're just going to completely disregard everything anyone else has to say? It's starting to mislead people.