Michigan State and the NBA

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EG#9

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I was just occurred to me yesterday that for all the success Michigan State has had over the past decade or so, it doesn't seem like they have had many guys turn in to NBA impact players. I just looked up their current alumni in the NBA and Zach Randolph and Jason Richardson are the biggest names. Both Randolph and Richardson are 8 year NBA vets. Since that time, there have been guys like Shannon Brown, Maurice Ager, Alan Anderson, and Charlie Bell all of whom have been on the fringe of the NBA (although Brown has carved a little niche for himself with the Lakers).

It's a credit to Izzo that he's produced such a successful run without any huge superstars in the past 7 years.
 

You forgot Morris Peterson. Very good player.

Career Season Averages
Year Team G GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% OFF DEF RPG APG SPG BPG TO PF PPG
00-01 TOR 80 49 22.6 0.431 0.382 0.717 1.4 1.8 3.2 1.3 0.8 0.2 0.97 2.05 9.3
01-02 TOR 63 56 31.6 0.438 0.364 0.751 1.4 2.1 3.5 2.4 1.2 0.2 1.37 2.76 14.0
02-03 TOR 82 80 35.9 0.392 0.337 0.789 1.2 3.2 4.4 2.3 1.1 0.4 1.56 2.83 14.1
03-04 TOR 82 29 26.2 0.405 0.371 0.809 0.4 2.8 3.2 1.4 1.1 0.2 0.84 2.51 8.3
04-05 TOR 82 61 30.6 0.420 0.385 0.832 0.9 3.3 4.1 2.1 1.1 0.2 1.13 2.67 12.5
05-06 TOR 82 77 38.3 0.436 0.395 0.820 0.8 3.9 4.6 2.3 1.3 0.2 1.54 2.72 16.8
06-07 TOR 71 12 21.3 0.429 0.359 0.683 0.5 2.9 3.3 0.7 0.6 0.2 0.75 1.77 8.9
07-08 NOH 76 76 23.6 0.417 0.394 0.765 0.5 2.2 2.7 0.9 0.6 0.1 0.54 1.64 8.0
08-09 NOH 43 9 12.0 0.399 0.388 0.632 0.3 1.7 2.0 0.4 0.4 0.0 0.35 1.19 4.4
09-10 NOH 39 32 20.7 0.381 0.349 0.596 0.4 2.4 2.8 0.9 0.5 0.0 0.62 1.69 7.0
Career -- 700 481 27.4 0.418 0.373 0.773 0.8 2.7 3.5 1.5 0.9 0.2 1.02 2.27 10.8


And Mateen Cleaves

Cleaves was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in the 2000 NBA Draft with the fourteenth pick. During his rookie season, he played in 78 games, averaging 5.4 points and 2.7 assists, as his success in the college game did not carry over to the professional level.
 

what about Dahlman isn't he projected to be a lottery pick this year?
 

Most of the superstars in the NBA are high school kids or one-and-dones. Izzo isn't really a one-and-done recruiter (has he had any?), so I'd say the NBA talent he's produced is pretty fair for the success his teams have in college.
 

rcpratt said:
Most of the superstars in the NBA are high school kids or one-and-dones. Izzo isn't really a one-and-done recruiter (has he had any?), so I'd say the NBA talent he's produced is pretty fair for the success his teams have in college.
Click to expand...

Richardson and Randolph i think
 


cleaves is now an analyst, he didn't really pan out too well...loved him in college though
 


Izzo and the NBA

I think the proper question is how he wins without McDonald's All American's, the top 24 players each year. Most of the best NBA players have been on this team. He seem to get the guys outside the top 25 to top 100 and groom them for four years. Randolph and Richardson being the exceptions, not the rule.
 

march madness said:
I think the proper question is how he wins without McDonald's All American's, the top 24 players each year. Most of the best NBA players have been on this team. He seem to get the guys outside the top 25 to top 100 and groom them for four years. Randolph and Richardson being the exceptions, not the rule.
Click to expand...
Izzo has had 8 McDonald's All-Americans at Michigan State - Cleaves, Richardson, Taylor, Randolph, Torbert, Davis, Brown, and Cotton. Plus one more coming next year (Appling).
 



This idea that Izzo is somehow doing what he's doing without incredible talent is crazy. Since he's taken over the head coaching job there he has probably had more talent through that campus than any other Big Ten coach. He is a great coach, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking he doesn't have talent. Heck, he was bringing in two players off the bench this year that would have started for almost every other Big Ten team (Green, Summers).

In addition, outside of a small handful of schools, there aren't that many programs who just load the NBA with talent. Too many one-and-dones, international players, NBA players playing longer careers, etc. There just aren't that many new NBA players each year that come into the league after a long college career. In relative terms, that MSU list is actually fairly impressive. That's a good number of players and kind of shows why they've been to so many final fours over a decade+.
 

Nobody said he doesn't have talent, just that he doesn't have nearly as much elite talent as the other top 5 or so programs. MSU's talent has been less than that of UNC, KY, KU, and Duke over the last 10 or so years. Izzo always has very good players that play great together. Even his stars haven't been the John Wall types
 

Izzo has definitely shyed away from recruiting the very top of the top guys since the days of Randolph and Richardson. He did not like those two leaving early.

He made several comments around that time saying he shouldn't recruit that highly talented of a player. I'm sure a part of it was somewhat made jokingly - but I really think there was some truth to it as well.

He's still recruited guys in the MCDAA game - but he's stayed away from the 1 or 2-and-done-guys.
 

Izzo's a smart coach to look for 4 year players instead of the 1 and dones. It seems Tubby is recruiting in the same manner and hopefully can achieve Izzo like results for the Gophers.
 



Izzo gets guys to play his style, which is far different than the style that's played in the NBA - he's not really preparing guys for the NBA by running an offense with bunch of set plays and little improv. Izzo does a great job of getting guys to stick with his program and he always has a lot of guys with good size & strength, and so he almost always has a lot of depth & size. His teams have enough size, strength and depth to keep playing tough D in the paint and doing a great job on the glass, & when you combine that with good execution on the offensive end out of timely timeouts, they are able to go farther than what their usual lack of high end talent would suggest they are capable of.
 

North Carolina had about 8 Mcdonald's All-Americans on the team last year!
 


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