Winning is the only thing

Day 1: Michigan State | Traveling Violations

EAST LANSING, Mich. – The numbers that most excite Tom Izzo about his latest recruiting class, a three-man group announced Wednesday on national signing day, have nothing to do with where the players are ranked individually or collectively by the talent scouts.

Instead all he cares about is 80-4, the combined record last year of the high school teams of Isaiah Dahlman, Tom Herzog and Raymar Morgan; a record that includes state championships in Ohio and Minnesota.

"I do think there is something about knowing how to win," Izzo said as he announced the class (which, for the record, came in 12th nationally according to scout Dave Telep) on a bright, sunny day here in mid-Michigan. "You can learn how to win, but it makes it more difficult. To win at that level, you don't just get there and those are the guys I want to have around.

"I am over a time when recruiting ratings mattered to me more. There was a time I needed to be [in the] top 10, top 15."

And that is just how Izzo should be at this point – sure of himself as a coach with little to prove to anyone. He simply is looking for the kind of guys who can continue the run of success here that is taking on historic proportions. He doesn't care about stars, he cares about wins.

State will start the season ranked No. 4 in the nation with a clear focus on finishing No. 1.

"We've got a shot," said Izzo, whose team fell to eventual national champion North Carolina in the Final Four last year.

Izzo's program already has reached the NCAA Tournament's final weekend four times in the past seven years, including winning the 2000 NCAA title. Only five other coaches have done as much, and their names all are enshrined in Springfield, Mass.: Wooden, Smith, Krzyzewski, Crum and Iba.

Izzo will never spend time comparing himself to those guys; he still is the product of a humble Upper Peninsula upbringing, fully motivated by the fear of failure.

But the days of wondering if his system was the right one, if his abilities could measure up, are long, long gone. If anything secured his confidence it was last season's success, which came with a new and different group.

"It got to be where [critics could say], 'He could do it with the [Mateen] Cleaves group, but that was it," Izzo said of the Spartans' 2002-2004 Final Four "drought." "That was a different kind of team with different kind of players. It meant a lot to me."

So maybe just a few seasons ago he would have dwelled on whether or not his recruiting class was highly-ranked by Internet scouting services. Maybe then he would have been bothered that Ohio State signed a higher-rated class, or wondered if he had pursued the right players or worked hard enough.

But now he takes a longer look at things. Whether they are ranked 12th or 112th, he just signed three winners. Besides, this is the first group in a two-year process of building a potential champion down the line.

"This is phase one," Izzo said. "We spent a lot of time [this summer and fall] recruiting the junior class. These two classes will make a big difference in how we will be in three or four years."

That's not just coaching a team. It's called running a program, and in the last decade no one has built a program stronger than Izzo has.

When he took over in 1995 after a long stint as an anonymous assistant, Michigan and Indiana ruled the Big Ten and the Spartans had little more than the fleeting memories of the Magic Johnson era to cling too.

Since 1997, State has averaged a 25-8 record. And that is why Izzo is the kind of guy who not only got to play golf this summer with Tiger Woods, but had Woods tell the media afterward, "If I was playing ball, he's the type of guy that I'd want to go play for."

If you are a winner of a player (like Woods) what recruiting pitch could be more effective than the fact that every four-year player Izzo has recruited has appeared in at least one Final Four?

After the signing-day press conference, which took place in the team's modern film room and included video highlights of each player, Izzo went down to the floor of the Breslin Center and conducted practice.

Led by seniors Maurice Ager and Paul Davis and junior Shannon Brown, the Spartans are deep, talented and experienced – and focused solely on one goal: clipping the nets at the Final Four in Indianapolis.

So the purpose of every single practice drill – from defensive shuffles to an offensive scrimmage – on Wednesday was not just to get better at the game, but to get better at winning.

"This team has the potential to get very good," Izzo said. "If it progresses as most teams here have, by January we can be really good. We can win a lot of games."

Which, at this point, is all that matters at Tom Izzo's Michigan State.

Dan Wetzel is Yahoo! Sports' national columnist. Click here to follow him on Twitter. Send Dan a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

Updated on Thursday, Nov 10, 2005 3:53 pm, EST

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