John Niyo: Michigan State's latest loss to Duke doesn't sit well with Izzo

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Duke is still Duke.

And Tom Izzo is still Tom Izzo.

So this loss won’t feel like any other loss for Michigan State’s Hall of Fame coach, who watched his Spartans go toe-to-toe with No. 4 Duke — “one of the top two or three best teams in the country,” in Izzo’s view — but still come out on the wrong end of a 66-60 final score Saturday afternoon at a sold-out Breslin Center.

And after watching his team cough up a second-half lead and then make some critical mistakes late to lose again to a long-time nemesis — Izzo’s now 3-15 all-time and winless at home (0-3) against the Blue Devils — the Spartans’ coach was understandably seething when he arrived for his postgame press conference.

“To be the best, you gotta beat the best,” said Izzo, whose team — now 8-1 on the season — was off to its best start since 2015. “You don't get many opportunities to do that. And today we had an opportunity in front of an electric crowd. And we didn't get it done.”

The fact that this marquee nonconference game came at the end of one of the most energizing stretches in the history of MSU athletics only added to his frustration once it was over Saturday. From Tuesday’s arrival of new football coach Pat Fitzgerald, who gave another fiery pep talk to the Breslin crowd during a timeout with 2 minutes to go in a tie game, to the announcement of a landmark $401 million donation to the university from Greg and Dawn Williams — that had Izzo choking back tears at a Friday press conference — “it has been one of those weeks that is a memory maker,” Izzo said before Saturday’s tip-off. “I'd like to make it a good memory."

Zoning out

For much of the afternoon, it appeared the Spartans would, too. Michigan State’s stifling defense frustrated Duke’s star freshman Cameron Boozer initially, limiting him to two points in the first half. And between the floor leadership of Jeremy Fears Jr., who led the way with 13 assists, a flurry of early 3-pointers from Jaxon Kohler, and a career-best 16-point, 16-rebound effort from Carson Cooper, all the ingredients were there for a milestone win.

Until they weren’t. Again, in Izzo’s case.

“There's been a lot of games that we've played against Duke that we lost in the last three minutes,” he said. “So somebody's doing a hell of a lot better job than I'm doing on that.”

It’s no longer Coach K on the other bench, as it was for so long. Now it’s one of Mike Krzyzewski’s former players, Jon Scheyer, who took over the program a few years ago and took Duke back to a Final Four last spring.

“And the job that Jon's done, I'm in awe,” Izzo said. “Most people don't want to follow a legend. He followed an icon, and he's done a hell of a job.”

After he’d gotten the job done Saturday afternoon, Scheyer, whose team improved to 10-0, went out of his way to praise not only Izzo and his program, but also the atmosphere his team survived here. The Izzone showed up early, was on Boozer and his teammates as soon as they took the court for pregame warm-ups, and the crowd did what it could to carry the Spartans through some offensive struggles as MSU shot just 31.8% from the field.

Scheyer’s decision to switch to a zone defense down the stretch — partly due to foul trouble for his frontcourt — proved critical, too. Michigan State made just three field goals in the final 9 minutes: a putback dunk and a pair of layups from Cooper. The Spartans aren’t a great perimeter-shooting team, as we’ve all seen, and Izzo wasn’t happy with the way they failed to attack the zone inside-out in that closing stretch.

But he was far more upset at some of the other mistakes they made along the way Saturday. Missed cutouts on Duke free-throw attempts led to Boozer putbacks in both halves. Another offensive rebound led to a crucial 3-pointer from the Blue Devils’ Isaiah Evans that erased Michigan State’s final lead with 3:59 left. (Izzo was livid about Boozer’s moving screen that should’ve negated that bucket.)

And as Fears, who finished the game 0 for 10 from the field, noted afterward in a quiet Michigan State locker room, “I think this group learned today that those small things lose you games."

“That’s why we’re really big on it in practice,” he added, echoing comments his coach had made at the podium a few minutes earlier. “One turnover, one foul, one and-one, one offensive rebound. One small thing can change the momentum, change the game and change everything. …

“We prepared. We knew the answers to the test. It’s just that we didn't do what we needed to do.”

Approximately special

Of course, this team has done that plenty of times already this season, notching some impressive wins in a November gauntlet that raised everyone's expectations for this season. And Saturday's loss certainly shouldn't change that. Not after effectively playing one of the nation's most talented teams to a draw for 38 minutes, only to cough up a signature win at the end.

But once that was done, it left Izzo facing a question he wasn’t really in the mood to hear: Was this loss more frustrating or discouraging?

“Is pissed off in there?” he replied. “I’d go to that one first. I really mean that.”

In the end, though, he admitted it was probably all of the above.

“Because today was supposed to be a special day,” he said, “and it was in every way except the win.”

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