'A hell of a place to be': Tom Izzo reflects on becoming winningest Big Ten basketball coach ever
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EAST LANSING – At some point in the future, Tom Izzo will come to terms with what he accomplished Sunday.
Michigan State's 77-67 win over Maryland marked Izzo's 663rd triumph with the Spartans, breaking a tie with Bobby Knight for most victories by a coach at a Big Ten school. After the win, and after the senior day ceremony that followed, Izzo still wasn't sure exactly what to make of the achievement. On one hand, he said it was "humiliating" and "a little embarrassing" to usurp Knight, a man he idolized.
"He was my hero," Izzo said. "It was John Wooden for some. I was not quite — I didn't know enough about him, so it was Bob Knight (for me)."
Surpassing Knight didn't make Izzo nostalgic about specific games. Instead, Izzo's thoughts turned to Knight the person. While known for his bombastic, fiery nature — which at times boiled over, both on and off the court — Knight took a liking to Izzo from the start.
Izzo's first Big Ten win came at Knight's expense: Michigan State topped Indiana, 65-60, at the Breslin Center on Jan. 4, 1996. Four seasons later, after the Spartans (the eventual national champions that year) outlasted the Hoosiers in overtime in a matchup of top-11 teams, Izzo recalled Knight imparted words of advice. Believing MSU possessed the talent and intangibles to win a national title, Knight, himself the owner of three national championships, counseled Izzo on how to handle the media spotlight and the difficult road ahead.
For Izzo, words take precedence over records.
"Because the number of wins they go by, who knows how the competition was then compared to now and all those things?" he said. "But records are made to be broken, and if I'm in the same sentence with Bobby Knight and Gene Keady, for Tom Izzo, that's a hell of a place to be."
Izzo's players wanted to ensure the record-breaking victory came at Breslin, not a neutral site at the Big Ten or NCAA tournaments. Senior Gabe Brown, who scored 10 points Sunday, said the Spartans were well aware Izzo needed just one more win to edge ahead of Knight. They just didn't want to put any undue pressure on themselves.
So they didn't talk about it beforehand.
"We wanted to get the job done for him," Brown said. "To have him be on top and how important that is to him, I'm just glad we got it done tonight."
Fellow senior Marcus Bingham Jr. was so focused on the task at hand he forgot about the historical significance until the final buzzer sound.
"The goal today was, 'Win first, then celebrate after,' " said Bingham, who recorded a double-double with 12 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. "So I think I did a good job keeping it in everybody's head that, 'Let's win first. I know it's senior night, but we just lost two in a row, so we need this one.' "
Bingham saw to it from the beginning, as he scored all 12 of his points in the first half. He started the scoring with a dunk — an alley oop from Joey Hauser, the third member of the scholarship senior group — and didn't miss a shot from the field, going 4 of 4 overall and 3-for-3 from the 3-point line in the opening 20 minutes.
Bingham pointed to a pregame locker room talk as the spark for MSU's great start, which included the Spartans scoring the game's first 14 points and 18 of the first 19.
"Everybody had the same goal tonight, and we came out with a (win)," he said. "That's all that matters."
As for Izzo, after just a few words about the record, he quickly turned his attention to chasing win No. 664 — and beyond.
MSU begins play in the Big Ten tournament — with another matchup against Maryland — at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in Indianapolis. The NCAA tournament field will be announced Sunday.
"There are teams that are better than us right now. But I don't think there's anybody we can't beat, either," he said. "Unfortunately, I don't think there are many teams that can't beat us. But I think that seems to be something all around the country."
Contact Ryan Black at rblack@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @RyanABlack.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Michigan State's Tom Izzo surpasses Bob Knight on Big Ten wins list
