STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — At some point, the identity of a team simply is what it is.
It might not be exactly what anyone was hoping for, and that's probably why early this week, when he was asked what his team's identity was, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo chuckled as he said free-throw shooting was the Spartans' calling card.
That was, at the time, the best Izzo had. Michigan State has been shooting well from the line and coming off the win over Indiana on Saturday, when it went 25-for-28. It's been one of the few consistent things the Spartans have done this season, even noting that two games — Northwestern and at Illinois — slipped away with missed free throws in the final seconds.
The staples of the Michigan State program under Izzo have, however, been defending, rebounding and running. And, to a larger extent, toughness.
With six games left in the regular season, those staples have eluded the Spartans, at least on a consistent basis. Since Big Ten play began, Michigan State has been on a rollercoaster. Win a big game — see at Wisconsin and at home vs. Michigan — and follow it with head-scratchers like Tuesday's loss at Penn State, or the home loss to Northwestern, or the home loss to Wisconsin ... it goes on and on.
Izzo used words like "punked" and phrases like "pushed around" Tuesday, and that's not the first time this season he's used similar jargon.
For a program like the one Izzo has built, it can be wildly frustrating, but perhaps this is just the reality. Michigan State is a good team, far from great, that doesn't have what it takes to be good consistently enough to become great. That's not the identity Izzo or anyone around Michigan State's program is accustomed to.
Maybe the Spartans will get there. Maybe a huge turnaround is coming, beginning with Saturday's game with first-place Illinois. Or, maybe it comes next season when key players like Max Christie, Jaden Akins and the point guard duo of A.J. Hoggard and Tyson Walker are more seasoned.
Either way, Izzo is scrambling, searching for anything.
"It's been urgent for me since January," Izzo said in his brief postgame comments on Tuesday night. "Sense of urgency never changes for me. You don't have urgency because you lose. That's a losing program and we're not a losing program.
"We just got some guys that don't understand what it takes."
That much is evident, and has been for most of the season, primarily the last nine games as the Spartans have gone 4-5 and keep falling further back in the Big Ten race. Outside of the Rutgers game, senior Gabe Brown has been absent during the stretch and on Tuesday, the continued saga of Marcus Bingham played out as he sat most of the second half, watching Julius Marble play as well as he could before running out of gas in the final minutes.
Izzo has tried plenty. He's called players out, he's tried taking the blame to lift some pressure off his guys, and he's tinkered with the starting lineup and playing rotation. It's worked, but never for long.
Perhaps it was his latest effort to push the right buttons Tuesday night, when for the first time that anyone covering the program can recall, he kept his players from speaking to the media.
On its surface, it's not a big deal. There aren't many players on this roster — or any, for that matter — that would have offered up much of anything after the No. 19 Spartans (18-7, 9-5 Big Ten) threw away a 14-point lead in the second half against the Nittany Lions. And there's likely plenty in the Michigan State locker room who were happy to just head to the bus and get to the airport.
But it's what the move might signify that is worth noting. Izzo has, for his 27-year career, had one of the most open and transparent programs in the country. It's been important to Izzo, who believes facing the media is as important to the players' maturation as learning how to guard a ball screen. It's about accountability.
Never has he shielded the players. In fact, he's often forced them to face the music when times are the toughest. In the same city and the same building back in 2014, Izzo forced Adreian Payne and Branden Dawson to sit in front of the media until all questions were exhausted after the two got in an altercation at the team hotel. It's something he's done with plenty of players over the years, whether they've played poorly or gotten in trouble.
Why it happened Tuesday is a guess at this point. Izzo will likely meet with the media again Thursday and it will certainly come up. And expect the players to be available, too.
So maybe it was just the culmination of a season full of frustrations and everyone simply wanting to get away from it. After all, Izzo's post-game presser barely lasted seven minutes, a wildly brief amount of time in the world of Tom Izzo press conferences.
His time on the postgame radio show was even shorter, Izzo wrapping up after he was asked what he would tell his team.
"I don't know," he said. "I'm gonna sit back, I got a long plane ride to figure out what I'm gonna say. So sorry to wrap this up early, but I don't really want to talk about it right now. I'm just gonna do my job and see if I can do it a lot better than I've been doing it."
The headset came off and Izzo was on his way.
Soon, the entire team was, too, without much to say.
