Michigan State coach Tom Izzo didn’t pass out the football helmets and shoulder pads in practice to toughen up his basketball team this season. With the Spartans matched up Saturday against strong-as-steel Pittsburgh, Izzo wonders if that was a mistake.
“I did it last year, I should have done it this year,” Izzo said Friday during interviews of the four teams preparing for NCAA Tournament second-round action Saturday at the Pepsi Center. “I was afraid my guys would chicken out this year.”
Don’t believe him.
Perhaps Michigan State (26-8) isn’t as tough as some of those Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson-led teams. But the Spartans are plenty tough. The Spartans rank first in the Big Ten and eighth nationally in rebounding margin (plus-7.1 per game). Michigan State has ranked no worse than second in Big Ten rebounding in 12 of Izzo’s 13 seasons as head coach.
Although Izzo hasn’t borrowed football gear in a while, he regularly includes the MSU “war drill” in the practice schedule. When senior guard Drew Neitzel was asked by reporters to describe the war drill, he smiled.
“Basically, Coach throws the ball up and, you know, you’ve got two teams and they just go after it,” Neitzel said Friday. “It gets pretty physical. The coaches are there, pushing us, trying to motivate each guy to get the ball.
“Everybody’s going 110 percent trying to get it. A lot of guys come out of there with bloody lips, bloody noses. It’s pretty intense.”
About what the Spartans expect Saturday?
“It’s going to be a tough, physical game,” junior guard Travis Walton said. “They’ve got some big men, tough guards. So do we. It’s going to come down to the last possessions of the game.”
Footnotes. Izzo on Pitt’s 6-foot-7, 265-pound freshman center DeJuan Blair: “I thought, ‘My God, where do they grow those kinds of guys? I want to get one. ” MSU’s Raymar Morgan, a 6-7 sophomore, prefers to play at small forward but knows he will be counted on at times to be a power forward Saturday to counteract the athleticism of Pitt’s 6-6 Sam Young. “He’s a great player, can do pretty much everything,” Morgan said. “It should be a pretty good matchup.” Final thought: “I don’t think this will be quite the slugfest everybody thinks,” Izzo predicted. “It won’t be Woody Hayes against Bo Schembechler, 3 yards and a cloud of dust.”
Tom Kensler: 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com
