Izzo: U-M game 'better mean more to everybody'
EAST LANSING – Tum Tum Nairn was in street clothes as Michigan State began practicing for Michigan on Tuesday, an indication that the sophomore starting point guard will miss his sixth straight game Saturday when the No. 10 Spartans travel to Crisler Center.
Then again, he is doing more and feeling better, and plantar fasciitis – which has bothered his right foot since last season – can be unpredictable.
“Unlike a sprained ankle or something, if it comes around, he could play,” MSU coach Tom Izzo said of Nairn. “So I guess I’ve got to (wait) another day or two, and by Thursday I guess we’ll know for sure.”
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Meanwhile, Izzo has no contingency plan for injured U-M guard Caris LeVert. The Spartans will prepare for the Wolverines the same way – the Wolverines play the same way with and without LeVert, they just have more firepower with him – and perhaps both teams will end up fully stocked Saturday (2 p.m., CBS) in their only regular-season meeting.
If so, it will be a rarity in the recent history of this series. That was Izzo’s explanation Tuesday when asked what has changed for MSU in its three-game winning streak over John Beilein’s Wolverines, which was preceded by three straight U-M wins.
“I think there’s been some bizarre injuries, and more than one,” Izzo said. “If it’s one, you can survive it. If it gets to be two or three, I think that changes it. Just about every game has been a pretty good game. I think for the most part our losses have been close losses. And that would be the only thing I can come up on why there’s a swing. If you look at the last couple years, to me it seems both teams were pretty good. But I think, why the swings? I think injuries had something to do with it, on both sides.”
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MSU swept U-M last season, with LeVert and Derrick Walton both sidelined for both games with foot injuries. U-M swept MSU the previous regular season, with Branden Dawson missing both games with a broken hand and Adreian Payne missing one of them with a foot injury.
That U-M team was missing Mitch McGary (back) as well, and MSU point guard Keith Appling was limited by a wrist injury. Dawson was back and dominated in MSU’s Big Ten tournament title game win over U-M that season to start the current streak.
MSU senior guard Denzel Valentine gave emotion much of the credit for the Spartans’ recent turnaround. He said the Spartans saw themselves listed as an NCAA bubble team on ESPN before the win at U-M last season – an accurate assessment at the time for a team that ended up reaching the Final Four -- and used that as motivation.
As MSU prepared to face U-M in the 2014 Big Ten tourney final in Indianapolis, it was trying to halt a stretch of six losses in eight games in the series.
“We were supposed to win the Big Ten that year, flat-out, we had the best team,” Valentine said after Tuesday’s practice. “But we got beat twice (by U-M), once on ‘College GameDay,’ it was kind of embarrassing. So we were hungry.”
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The hunger now is “to prove that we’re a top-5 team and we can win the national championship,” Valentine said.
But it’s more than that – or at least it should be, Izzo said.
“It better mean more to everybody, or Jud Heathcote will come swinging back from his crutches,” Izzo joked of his former boss at MSU. “You know, he always said your rivalry games should be special games. I don’t care who your rivalry game is against. You can sometimes have a couple, for the most part you have one, sometimes two but never more than that on a consistent basis. (The) Michigan-Michigan State game … only counts as one as George Perles says, but it should count a little more than that. When you only play them once, it should be a bigger issue.”