Michigan State's Izzo straps 'em up at NCAA time

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Everything you need to know about the mindset of a Tom Izzo-coached Michigan State basketball team -- which plays Memphis Friday in the NCAA South Regional semifinals in Houston -- dates to the Spartans' 2000 national championship season.Izzo, infuriated that his team was uncharacteristically out-rebounded in a loss to Ohio State, decided it was time for a toughness injection.So he dialed up his close friend, then-Spartans football coach Nick Saban, and asked if he could borrow 10 sets of shoulder pads and helmets for his players to use for Izzo's war drill.What's a war drill?"Basically, Coach throws the ball up, you've got two teams and you just go after it," said all-Big Ten senior guard Drew Neitzel, one of college basketball's clutch three-point shooters. "Guys are hitting each other, throwing each other around. There's bloody lips, bloody noses. It's pretty intense."Izzo hasn't trotted out the war drill this season. But he smiles every time he tells the story of his 2000 team strapping on the football equipment for the greatest war drill of all time."It was fun watching our guys wear shoulder pads and buckling a chin strap," Izzo said. "A couple didn't even know how to put the helmet on."Because of the toughness mindset -- "Mental toughness is as important as physical toughness, because if you're physically tough and mentally weak, it's not going to do you any good," Izzo said -- the Spartans (27-8) have advanced to the Sweet 16 after an average Big Ten season. They finished fourth in the league at 12-6, leading the league in field goal percentage and rebounding.Michigan State started the season 19-2 (including a 78-72 win over Texas and a 68-63 loss to UCLA), the best 21-game start in school history. Then, the Spartans lost three of four Big Ten games, including consecutive road losses to Purdue and Indiana in which MSU committed a combined 38 turnovers.Despite being eliminated in the Big Ten tourney quarterfinals by Wisconsin, 65-63, Izzo and his team were confident they could do some damage in the NCAA Tournament.And they have, with two solid performances built around Izzo's philosophies that games are won with rebounding, solid defense and heady shot selection, beating 12th-seeded Temple, 71-62, and No. 4 seed Pittsburgh 65-54.MSU players say that as good a coach as Izzo is during the season, he's even better in the bright lights of the NCAA tourney, where he has a 26-9 record in 11 appearances. He' s been to three Final Fours (the last in 2005) and to a regional final."He always stays up a lot during the season," junior guard Travis Walton said, "but this is the time of year he can watch film all day and stay up until four in the morning. Every game, every team, is a personal challenge for him."Izzo admits he gets juiced for what he calls "maybe one of the greatest sports spectacles in our country.""What I'm striving for is to make sure my players understand a little bit more," Izzo said."(The NCAA tourney) is at a different level. And each week that goes by, it just doubles and triples."The Spartans seem to have the experience to handle it, starting two seniors and a junior. MSU also starts sophomore forward Raymar Morgan and true freshman point guard Kalin Lucas.Morgan led the team in scoring (14.2 points per game) most of the season when defenses concentrated on stopping Neitzel. Lucas re-gained his starting job in mid-February, and has emerged as the team's third scoring option. In Saturday's win over Pittsburgh, he scored 19.And though Neitzel statistically isn't having as good a season as last year, he has felt the urgency down the stretch of knowing the next loss means the end of a great college career. He hit 5-of-8 threes in a 21-point performance against Pittsburgh."I just want to be aggressive," said Neitzel, who's averaging 14.1 points and shooting 40.1 percent from three-point range. "That's what this team needs from me."(Contact Ron Higgins of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., at www.commercialappeal.com.)