Michigan State is peaking at the right time, just like they always do

If Michigan State is truly back after a three-game slide earlier this month, if the Spartans are primed to go on the type of March run the rest of the college basketball world has come to dread each and every year, you wouldn’t know it from listening to Tom Izzo talk.

On the night his team delivered a 76-45 knockout punch to Northwestern in Evanston, the MSU coach didn’t want to discuss the Spartans’ hot shooting, pristine ball movement or domination on the glass. Izzo was downright perturbed by his team’s mistakes, at least as much as a coach can be in a 31-point win.

“I thought we were sloppy with the ball,” Izzo said. “15 turnovers, some of them very casual. It was honestly disappointing. As I’m learning more and more -- and I don’t like it -- you make a shot and it takes away all evils. And we made a lot of shots.”

This game was never close. Michigan State made four more threes (16) than Northwestern did field goals (12). The Spartans finished with more than three times as many assists. They had one freshman, Deyonta Davis, block twice as many shots as all of the Wildcats combined.

Good win, right Tom?

“We had shot clock mistakes,” he said. “We had a few fastbreak mistakes. We just didn’t do some things. You cannot foul like we did. You cannot turn the ball over like we did. I don’t wanna dampen a good win, but it’s inexcusable. And I’m going to dampen a good win on that. It’s completely a lack of focus.”

This, right here, is the magic of Izzo: the refusal to ever let his team get too comfortable during an ultimately meaningless late January road win. It’s the only way to ensure the Spartans are always peaking at the right time.

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To this point, Michigan State’s season has been a roller coaster. You get the sense that’s exactly how Izzo likes it.

The Spartans started the year No. 13 in the preseason polls, but a win over then-No. 3 Kansas on a neutral floor in Chicago helped vault them to No. 1 in just over three weeks. This team looked the part of a national title contender: it had a senior superstar in Denzel Valentine, an impressive collection of shooters led by Bryn Forbes and some newfound depth thanks to an impressive freshmen class.

Then the adversity hit, as it always seems to for the Spartans around the turn of the new year. Valentine missed three weeks after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery, and Michigan State dropped its first game of the year to Iowa on their home floor.

Valentine came back just in time for another loss to the Hawkeyes, which started a run of three straight defeats where Michigan State looked like a team that had to relearn how to be itself after welcoming their star back. Michigan State had its dip, but it would be hard to find anyone who believed it was the start of an actual free fall.

On cue, the Spartans got it right just in time for a visit from Maryland last Saturday. Valentine and Forbes took over in the second half and MSU won a meeting between the Big Ten’s two most talented teams. What the Spartans did to Northwestern on Thursday was just more confirmation: Michigan State’s January stumble wasn’t the onset of a permanent slide. It was just a sign that even the best coaches and best teams can’t go an entire season without a modest setback.

At his core, Izzo is an authoritarian with a beating heart, like a strict father who knows a little tough love is exactly what his kid needs. Michigan State seems to recognize and respond to this, even if it makes for some tough days in practice.

“Coach knows what he wants to see and what championship teams look like,” Valentine said after the win over Northwestern. “If he doesn’t see it he’s going to hold us accountable to it and not fake it. That’s one thing about coach, he doesn’t fake anything.”

Six weeks from Selection Sunday, it’s evident Michigan State is rounding into the type of team Izzo regularly leads on prolonged runs in the NCAA Tournament. This team is better in almost every way than last season’s Final Four squad -- the middling No. 7 seed that needed Travis Trice to turn into Kemba Walker to reach the Final Four. If Izzo could win a regional with that team, the rest of college hoops should be shaking at the thought of what he could do with this squad.

Michigan State has a top-10 offense. Its defense holds opposing teams to just a 41.1 percent effective field goal percentage, the best mark in the country. The Spartans play the same disciplined man-to-man scheme they’ve won with for more than a decade.

This year, the Spartans come with the added bonus sharing the ball better than any team in the country. MSU averages exactly 20 assists a game, which trails only Baylor.

“I think we got the pieces,” Valentine said. “We got the coach. We got the talent. We just gotta take it there.”

At this point, no one is going to doubt an Izzo team that looks this formidable. Tough love can go a long way.