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EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan State has joined some rare air in college basketball history over the last half-century with coaching longevity and NCAA titles.
Since 1976, the Spartans have had just two coaches and both won a national championship.
Hall of Famer Tom Izzo cut down the nets in 2000 and Jud Heathcote won it all in 1979.
Kentucky, North Carolina and Michigan State are the three programs to have two basketball coaches in a span of at least four decades with each winning a national championship that was not vacated due to violating NCAA rules.
“That means the world to me because I don’t think Jud got the credit he deserved,” Izzo said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The Spartans, seeded No. 2 in the South Region, will open the NCAA Tournament against 15th-seeded Bryant on Friday night in Cleveland.
Izzo has become synonymous with March Madness, earning a spot in college basketball’s annual showcase 27 straight times in the longest streak by a coach.
He trails just Kansas’ record of 28 consecutive NCAA Tournaments, a run that the governing body ended in its record books in 2017 due to sanctions, and is tied with North Carolina’s stretch of success from 1975 to 2001.
The 70-year-old Izzo is in his 30th season in charge of a program he began working for as a part-time assistant under Heathcote in 1983.
He has been around long enough to coach a father and son, Jason and Jase Richardson, and to recruit a high school basketball player who has become a coaching peer.
When Izzo broke former Indiana coach Bob Knight’s record for Big Ten wins with his 354th conference victory, 54-year-old Purdue coach Matt Painter compared his ability to consistently win while enduring the test of time to Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak in 1941 that still stands.
“It’s unbelievable,” Painter said.
When Izzo took over a solid program, following Heathcote’s retirement, no one would have believed the Spartans would be in a conversation with college basketball…
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Author : LARRY LAGE
Publish date : 2025-03-17 17:34:00
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