They’ve done it again.
Michigan State’s Tom Izzo and Duke’s Mike Kryzewski have coached their teams back to the Final Four as the perennial powerhouses provide some order to a parity-filled tournament.
Duke was a favorite to make it, and Michigan State was a long-shot. But the common thread is that year after year, their coaches put together tough tournament teams.
Who saw the Spartans returning to the Final Four? After a strong start, Izzo’s club slowly faded from prominence and teams like Purdue, Ohio State and Wisconsin emerged as the teams anointed to carry the Big Ten flag. We all forgot that Izzo has his team ready for the dance every year. Though he only won the title in 2000 with Mateen Cleaves and company, Izzo has led MSU to the semis six out of the last 12 years. That’s impressive consistency considering what it takes to wind your way through the tournament year after year (and this year’s tourney is fresh evidence of that).
When Kalin Lucas went down in MSU’s nailbiter against Maryland last weekend, most thought the Spartans lost their chances of making it to Indianapolis. Give the Korie Lucious and Raymar Morgan credit for battling, and the entire program credit for coming through in the clutch during the past few tight games. Great coaches have their teams prepared for any situation, and Izzo and the Spartans are prepared for anything and anyone. Up next is Butler.
For Coach K and the Blue Devils, it’s the school’s first trip to the semis since 2004, which for the Dukies is a long time. Highly publicized and well-documented are the successes of Kryzewski, the three-time national champ and reviver of USA Olympic basketball.
I want to draw your attention to Kryszewski’s greatest achievement. Everyone lauds him for how he got a group of megastars to play together in the Olympics. But it’s actually old hat for Kryzewski. He’s been getting players to work together at Duke for decades. The only thing that can harness Coach K is when he has one HUGE star that they rely on.
Look at a few of his final four/championship squads:
He got Bobby Hurley,Christian Laettner, and Grant Hill worked together to dominate the early nineties.
He got Elton Brand, Corey Maggete, and Trajan Langdon to excel in the late nineties (this might’ve been his most NBA-talented group)
He got Shane Battier, Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Mike Dunleavy to win it in ’01.
He got Sheldon Williams, Shavlik Randolph, and J.J. Redick to make a run in ’04.
And now he got the three S’s (Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler, and John Scheyer) to the final four. None of them are world-beaters, but they each know their role and play disciplined, confident, poised basketball. After a 5 year drought, Coach K retooled and reloaded to form another title contender. No big surprise, but let’s not take it for granted.
If you had told me a few weeks ago that Duke would be the only 1 seed to make the Final Four I would have laughed. Then again, if you had told me Butler was going to make the Final Four…I would have laughed.