CLEVELAND, Ohio — Talk about the history of college basketball and it won’t take long for two names to come up: Izzo and Pitino.
Tom Izzo has been at Michigan State since 1995, long enough that none of the players on his roster have lived in a basketball world where he wasn’t the Spartans’ head coach.
Rick Pitino, currently at St. John’s, has been a prominent name in coaching, too, longer than any players in this tournament have been alive, though his list of coaching stops is significantly longer and more diverse than Izzo’s.
New Mexico junior forward Filip Borovicanin, in fact, knew Pitino before arriving to the United States from Serbia because of his overseas experience coaching in Greece from 2018 until he returned to coach Iona in 2020.
“If you talk about Rick Pitino, I’ve heard of him because I’ve watched a lot of Euroleague basketball and he coached Panathinaikos,” Borovicanin said, “so I’ve heard of him, but Tom Izzo, not really much before I came to my first year in college to Arizona.”
It doesn’t matter when or how players first learned those two names, it still creates a reaction in them.
“They’re two really great coaches, and they have a legacy that they’re going to leave behind in the game,” senior New Mexico guard CJ Noland said, “and to be a part of it is great for sure.”
Rick Pitino, of course, isn’t here. His St. John’s team was playing Arkansas in the second round of the West Region in Providence.
While that game was going on, Rick’s son, Richard Pitino, was talking about his second-round matchup on Sunday against Izzo and Michigan State, a second consecutive game pitting Izzo against the son of a coaching legend he’s known for a long time.
Izzo and the Spartans beat Phil Martelli Jr. and Bryant on Friday night.
That was a first-time matchup for Izzo, but he’s faced the young Pitino before. Pitino spent eight years at Minnesota, coaching in the same conference as Izzo. His success there was hit-or-miss. Pitino had three 20-win seasons and made two NCAA Tournament appearances before he was fired after going 14-15 in 2020-2021.
New Mexico coach Richard Pitino appreciated Tom Izzo standing up for him during his time in Minnesota.Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com
“The eight years that I was at Minnesota, it was love me, hate me, love me, hate me, it was rocky. We didn’t have a great amount of consistency,” Pitino said, “and (Izzo) always fought for me, for guys who were on the hot seat all the time, and he didn’t need to do that. He knows how hard it is at any job, and he’s just had an amazing amount of consistency.”
Izzo acknowledged a few minutes later in his press conference that he did stick up for Pitino.
“If you don’t stick up for coaches, who’s going to?” he said.
Izzo’s mindset was best summed up in an answer to a different question about building consistency in his program and the keys to it.
“If I was now in this era, there would be no Tom Izzo, there would be no Hall of Fame, there would be no national championship,” he said. “I’d have probably been fired in year two and a half. Talked to (former Duke coach) Mike Krzyzewski once, I think he said that. I talked to (former Kansas and North Carolina coach) Roy Williams, he told me about Dean Smith, it took like three or four years. It’s almost like those things are illegal now.”
Izzo went 33-28 in his first two years at Michigan State before breaking through in ’97-’98, laying the foundation for winning his only championship in 2000.
As one of the elder statesman in the game, he sees it as a responsibility to stand up for young coaches.
“I looked at that as one of my jobs, especially if it was coaches I respect, and were doing it the right way, and (Richard Pitino) did,” Izzo said. “Of course, I know his dad. But when he was in the league, it was fun to talk to him.”
Pitino has gone on to find success with New Mexico after going 13-19 his first season in ’21-’22. The Lobos went 22-12 the following season and have made back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, their first appearances since 2014. Sunday, the tenth-seeded Lobos will try to beat No. 2 Michigan State to advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1974.
While it didn’t work out for Pitino at Minnesota, Izzo taking time for him has stuck with Pitino and has likely been a big part of why he has been able to find success after his Minnesota tenure ended.
“I think more so than winning, the impact that (Izzo) has on people, younger coaches, that he does not need to wrap their arms around, certainly meant a lot to me,” Pitino said. “I was 30 years old as a head coach in the Big Ten, and you’re going against a Naismith Hall of Famer. He doesn’t need to spend time with me and do those things, but he does that. It just shows the type of person he is.”
As good as Izzo was to Pitino, he probably shouldn’t expect it on Sunday when the two face off.
“Come tomorrow from sunrise to sunset, I don’t like him at all,” Izzo said, “and don’t let him kid you, he doesn’t like me, either. As long as there’s respect, that’s all that really matters.”
