UNIVERSITY PARK – Empathy is in the eye of the beholder.
Take Tom Izzo, the coach of the Michigan State Spartans that just beat the Nittany Lion basketball team 65-54 on Saturday. He can’t be taller than 5-foot-8, but Izzo is a giant in college basketball.
Which made it kind of funny when Izzo tried to make the point that he knew what his old buddy Ed DeChellis going through. Like saccharin Taylor Swift relating to the train wreck called Lindsay Lohan.
Izzo’s team had just broken a three-game losing streak by defeating Penn State before 14,017 curiosity-seekers at the Bryce Jordan Center. That’s when the MSU coach launched into his lament.
“I’ve gone through a lot of things with our team in the past three games that I am not enamored with,” said Izzo, a four-time national coach of the year.
“…It’s hard. Losing is infectious. It bothers everyone from me, to you, to our fans.”
It was the Spartans’ first three-game skid in three seasons. Around East Lansing, you may not be able to count on the Big Car Guys, but Izzo, a small and smart and mighty icon, has never needed a bailout.
In 14 seasons, Izzo’s teams have earned a national championship, five Big Ten titles, five Final Four appearances and 355 games against only 143 losses (a .713 winning percentage). He ain’t Paterno, but he’s a lot more likable than Roy Williams or Jim Calhoun.
So, using Izzometrics, you might be able to see how a three-game MSU freefall could posssibly equal a 0-12 Penn State losing streak. Might.
So, in that sense, Izzo knows the troubles that DeChellis — a comrade from the days when both were assistants who frequently crossed paths on the recruiting trails — has seen.
“Losing starts to wear on you. It really does,” said Izzo. “You watch tapes of Penn State against Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin — they somehow find a way to lose. But they also find a way to stay in the game. They’re a good team, not a great team. Losing is a disease — it is the toughest thing of all.”
If Izzo only knew. Maybe he does. Penn State’s had the flu for years. This is just the latest strain.
DOUBLE-DIGIT LOSING STREAKS
This is DeChellis’ fourth season over his near-seven campaigns that the Lions have had double-digit losing streaks. There was an 11-game losing streak in his first year (2003-04), 12 games in 2004-05 and 13 in 2006-07.
The first two seasons he was saddled with Jerry Dunn’s All-American rejects. It was a flight of players so bad that their captain in ’03-04, Ndu Egekeze, didn’t start and avarged 6.2 points game. The co-captains the next season (stalwarts Kevin Fellows and Jason McDougald) not only didn’t start, they averaged all of 2.0 points a game combined.
Dunn, who took Penn State to the NCAA’s Sweet Sixteen in 2000-01, then guided Dear Fold State to a pair of seven-win seasons that included a 10-game losing streak in his final season (2002-03).
It is a bit of a Nittany Lion tradition, actually. Lose on, State.
Bruce Parkhill had a 15-game losing streak in his first year (1983-84) and an 11-game skid in Penn State’s first season (1992-93) in the Big Ten. Drill sargeant Dick Harter never lost more than four in a row, while gentle Johnny Bach — who later gained fame as a Chicago Bulls assistant in the halcyon days of Michael Jordan — had losing streaks of nine (1975-76) and 12 games (1977-78) in two of his final three seasons.
That’s nine losing streaks of nine games or more in the past 35 years. One every four seasons. Not Capistrano, but tough to swallow nonetheless.
WINNING NOT AN EASY RUN
The longest winning streak in that time? Thirteen games, by Jerry Dunn’s 1995-96 squad, the keys to which were handed over by Parkhill to Dunn a few weeks before the season started.
After that, the longest winning is seven — twice by Parkhill and once by DeChellis. Bach and Harter each could never muster more than six in a row.
Basketball is a game of runs, within a game and within a season. Momentum, once lost, becomes more elusive. At Penn State, to turn a phrase, success on the basketball court is equally inaccessible from all directions.
One more comparison, just to underscore that Penn State is a football school that only awakens once or twice a decade for basketball:
Since Bach’s reign, the football team has had more wins than the basketball team seven times, and is on the verge of eight. The Nittany Lion hoopsters have, at minimum, seven more chances to win four games and beat Joe Paterno’s 11-win season in 2009.
If they do not make that — which is likely, right? — that will mark three seasons in the past nine years that Paterno has had more wins than his basketball counterpart. Funny. Wasn’t it Joe’s head they wanted a half-decade ago?
Here’s an idea: Let Joe coach a game. His basketball credentials include time played against Bob Cousy.
The current freefall isn’t as bad it looks. The Nittany Lions have lost games by 1, 2, 3, 6, 8 and 9 points. They lost at the buzzer (Minnesota), in overtime (Wisconsin) and by coming from ahead by 16 points. Heck, they were beating Michigan State 46-44 on Saturday 27 minutes and 36 seconds into the game.
Perhaps that’s why Izzo handed Penn State the old “you don’t sweat much…for a fat girl” compliment after the game.
“That’s the best 0-12 team I’ve seen in a long, long time,” Izzo said.
Gee, thanks.
All these numbers are not new, at least in concept, to the initiated who follow Nittany Lion basketball. And almost everyone else as well.
IT AIN’T EASY BEING ED
Please, let’s not forget Penn State’s energizing run to the NIT title last year, as the Lions won their last five games and 10 of their last 13 on their way to a Penn State-record 27 victories. DeChellis finished with a 27-11 mark, and as we all know was rewarded with a contract extension.
That, no doubt, weighs heavily on him.
When the game ended on Saturday, an 11-point loss clutched from the jaws of a mid-second-half lead, Ed shoved his hands in pockets, took a deep breath and calmly walked to the Michigan State bench.
A good sportsman to the end, Ed shook the opposition’s hands, including that of Izzo, who he’s known for two decades. Tough 20 feet, walking across the Great Divide.
It can’t be easy for DeChellis, in many ways, and seeing the success of Izzo has to be one of them. Right-hand man made good, Izzo is 19-4 against Penn State. To his credit, DeChellis has lately held his own, and more, against Izzo. The Lions upset the Spartans at the Breslin Center 379 days ago, and two weeks before that they lost to the Spartans by only five points, rallying from a 17-point deficit.
It was close, but still a loss. In 2010, it’s been déjà vu all over again…and again…and again and…
“It’s not an easy sell when you walk out there every day and try to sell the kids on still having confidence,” DeChellis said after the game, calm and cordial. “The kids are hanging in there, still competing, still in good spirits.”
These days, DeChellis will take a win anywhere he can get it.
