Izzo kicks his team out of their locker room

[spiral97]

sound familiar?

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071106/BLOG05/71106005/1048

Let's take a short break from the tempest brewing in the Michigan State football program to review the basketball team's slip-up against Grand Valley State last Friday.

MSU coach Tom Izzo spoke to the media on Monday evening about his team's 85-82 double overtime exhibition loss to the Lakers and the upcoming exhibition game against Michigan Tech on Wednesday.

He reiterated that a combination of odd lineups – such as one where Drew Neitzel, Travis Walton and freshmen Kalin Lucas, Durrell Summers and Chris Allen were all on the floor at the same time in the last 15 seconds – and a failure to execute consistently resulted in the poor play on MSU's part, although he complimented Grand Valley's effort.

"Yeah, I probably experimented too much," Izzo said.

After the loss, Izzo decided to temporarily kick the players out of their brand-new locker room. Members of the media got to see the Spartans' new digs after the game and they look better than some NBA locker rooms, complete with comfortable couches, a high-tech television with a video-game system and a kitchen area.

"I just look at that as, you earn the right to have something that nice, and we didn't earn the right," Izzo said. "I just said that, make sure that everything including the toothbrushes are out of there."

Over the last few days, players have dressed in the weight room, or in hallways. Izzo said he'll decide when to let them back in based on their practice or game-time performance.

Although the game won't show up on MSU's record, the nature of the loss by a top-10 team to a Division II squad made the Spartans the brunt of national jokes. The game got prominent play on ESPN, and the broadcasters compared it to U-M's loss in football to Appalachian State.

But Izzo appeared to take it all in stride, saying he'd continue to continue to tinker with lineups against Michigan Tech, but would work more on those combinations in practice. Getting better defensive play from the bigs will also be a focus, he said.

what exactly goes on in there at half-time that they need a kitchen area and a video-game system?  ???  Makes me wonder how the bradley center home locker room stacks up.

[TallTitan34]

http://gomarquette.cstv.com/facilities/mcguirecenter.html#

If you click the photo gallery link here you can see the men's and women's locker rooms at the AL.  They are very very nice.

[spiral97]

But that's at the Al.. I'm talkin bradley center..

[TallTitan34]

I know the BC recieved a lot of upgrades.  I'd assume locker rooms were included in those upgrades.

[LastWarrior]

Didn't Bob Huggins do that to one of Cinci teams about 10 years back?

[spiral97]

I know we did it a year or two back.. also turned off the Al privileges and made everyone practice in the old gym.

[tomcrean4pres]

Would be a good motivating tool except you know the players know they are going to get back in there eventually....

[TallTitan34]

Still the Old Gym is not what you want to be playing in.  They'd work extra hard to get back to the AL as soon as possible!

[dwaderoy2004]

i read this in a doug gottlieg chat yesterday, and thought it was actually a good point.  tom izzo in a way takes blame for the loss, saying he experimented too much with lineups during the course of the game.  so does that mean izzo locked himself out of his plush office and he is now working in the hallway like the athletes?  seems fair to me...

[MUCrisco]

The locker room at the Bradley Center is very ordinary.  However, I'm not sure if they have done any updates on it since I was the women's manager.  (We used the same locker room when we played at the BC.)

The reason why locker rooms have a kitchen area, video games, etc, is that the coaches want it to be a place for the kids to hang out and bond.  Instead of going back to their dorms or apts between classes, before or after practices, they would rather they hang out in the locker room.  For that reason, the Al is the main locker room for Marquette, since it is on campus, and for Michigan St, it's the one at their arena.  Marquette doesn't spend too much time at the Bradley Center except before and after games.

[spiral97]

yeah that makes sense.
didn't see any kegs in the picture-show on that site.. either they're cleverly hidden or we're not brining these boys up right.

[rocky_warrior]

TT34 - like the new avatar - very clever

[TallTitan34]

Haha thanks. I may make a sign of it.

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff173/TallTitan34/MU-cubillan.jpg[/img]]

[muarmy81]

Izzo may have to kick his team out of their rooms as well, they barely beat Michigan Tech last night.  Yeah Big Ten