Izzo's gang no longer green giant...

[State Pub]

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it had to be said

[SpartyScott]

I just shamelessly copied / pasted onto another board.

[jdbmst3k]

must've been real easy to miss this thread

[Hank Moody]

Perhaps the most ignorant and misguided piece in journalism history.

[AUAlum06]

[mentalstate]

So, what did the editor say to him before he wrote this? "Jim, please go and sit in your bedroom, lie down on your bed and look up to the ceiling at the poster you have there of Chris Webber, then, once you're done with your business, write something."

[mitch cumstein]

Originally Posted by mentalstate

So, what did the editor say to him before he wrote this? "Jim, please go and sit in your bedroom, lie down on your bed and look up to the ceiling at the poster you have there of Chris Webber, then, once you're done with your business, write something."

actually it probably went like this:

jim: hey boss....i'm really struggling with this piece you want me to write.

editor: jesus, jim....just make something up! its not like most michigan fans can read anyway.

[132 Snyder]

Originally Posted by victory4msu*

Coach K has time to make loads of commercials and his program wasnt doing to bad last time i checked.

[Mr. Tanfan]

[D.Wags]

I wrote to Carty Last March. Got a response from him. Here it is. I also posted his response last March in regards to this article.

http://www.spartantailgate.com/forum...ight=Jim+Carty



Got a response from Carty of the AA news

---

Like I said earlier, I don't like emailing crap like that, but I just think Izzo is the classiest guy out there, and when Andy reprited Carty's article I thought I'd resend it to him. All I did was copy his article and say "hey, your wisdom was astounding".

Anyway, here's his response:

XXXXX,

I can't tell you what a wonderful compliment it is to have so many
Spartan fans still obsessing over one of my columns more than three
years after it was published!

Obviously someone reposted the column, huh? Probably
Spartantailgate.com, although I haven't had a chance to check.

Strangely enough, none of my readers wearing green and white seems to be
giving me credit for being the only guy to correctly call that the
Spartans had peaked (the days of three final fours in four years sure
are long gone, huh? looked at that record vs. the Top 25 recently?)

And, yes, things aren't looking good for me on the Michigan end of the
column, but I'm not quite ready to give up on my prediction yet. What I
will promise is that if the Wolverines don't pass the Spartans in the
Big Ten standings next year, I'll be happy to admit I was wrong.

In the meantime, good luck in Chicago this weekend and the tournament
afterward.

And, as I said, thanks for the compliment!

Jim Carty
Sports Columnist, The Ann Arbor News

[Stubarino]

Dawgs, now is when you resend the article again with a picture of the Final Four banner from last year

What a jackass

Originally Posted by dwags

I wrote to Carty Last March. Got a response from him. Here it is. I also posted his response last March in regards to this article.

http://www.spartantailgate.com/forum...ight=Jim+Carty



Got a response from Carty of the AA news

---

Like I said earlier, I don't like emailing crap like that, but I just think Izzo is the classiest guy out there, and when Andy reprited Carty's article I thought I'd resend it to him. All I did was copy his article and say "hey, your wisdom was astounding".

Anyway, here's his response:

XXXXX,

I can't tell you what a wonderful compliment it is to have so many
Spartan fans still obsessing over one of my columns more than three
years after it was published!

Obviously someone reposted the column, huh? Probably
Spartantailgate.com, although I haven't had a chance to check.

Strangely enough, none of my readers wearing green and white seems to be
giving me credit for being the only guy to correctly call that the
Spartans had peaked (the days of three final fours in four years sure
are long gone, huh? looked at that record vs. the Top 25 recently?)

And, yes, things aren't looking good for me on the Michigan end of the
column, but I'm not quite ready to give up on my prediction yet. What I
will promise is that if the Wolverines don't pass the Spartans in the
Big Ten standings next year, I'll be happy to admit I was wrong.

In the meantime, good luck in Chicago this weekend and the tournament
afterward.

And, as I said, thanks for the compliment!

Jim Carty
Sports Columnist, The Ann Arbor News

[Rule Spartannia]

That column, while funny (in a pathetic sort of way), still makes me want to punch that smug little gasbag right in the liver.

[Tom Hagen]

(the days of three final fours in four years sure
are long gone, huh? looked at that record vs. the Top 25 recently?)

oh this just makes me giggle.....I am getting a kick out of this guy...do you think he has ever picked up a basketball?? My guess is he looks and acts like one of those...you know.....sissy boys.

[SpartanButter]

Originally Posted by dwags

Strangely enough, none of my readers wearing green and white seems to be
giving me credit for being the only guy to correctly call that the
Spartans had peaked (the days of three final fours in four years sure
are long gone, huh? looked at that record vs. the Top 25 recently?)

Does this tool actually know how many programs have gone to 3 straight final fours in the modern era?


I am waiting for someone in this thread to tell me how there is zero bias in the Detroit media, Vince 56, anyone, Bueller?

[ilang]

The two best parts of this:

Originally Posted by Andy_H

It's starting already here. Amaker may have already found his own Cleaves in Texas guard Daniel Horton.



The Fab Five were a national story. Every little kid with a pair of Jordans and a hoop in his neighborhood knew C Webb and the boys.
A lot of those kids are now going to the Nike or ABCD camps, and they remember those years.

Comparing Horton to Cleaves is a joke.

And the funny thing about the second comment is that now you have guys like Chris Allen, from Georgia, coming to State. He recently talked about how he drew a picture of himself as a Spartan when he was in 5th grade, which would have been 6-7 years ago, right when MSU was in their consecutive final four streak. Kids who are currently in those Nike camps probably became aware of big time college sports when MSU was totally dominant. They are far too young to remember the fab five. So I guess MSU made a little more noise than outside of just Flint. Count on it.

[Big Doug]

Thanks for posting this classic column.

[Hank Moody]

Carty is a smug ass. He wrote another column insulting Smoker prior to a MSU-UM game, stating something like Navre should have got into trouble with the law to get the praise that Smoker was getting. The guy is an utter moronic hack.

I love when a journalist fires back with the perception that writing them is a compliment because you are reading their article -- no actually, its a response to pure stupidity that due to some unknown reason that person was allowed to be member of the media.

Its the likes of Carty who give that profession a bad name.

[msuferd]

What an assbag. I second the notion to send the article back to him (and his response to Dawgs) with a picture of last years final four banner.

[mighty mouth]

While this article makes me chuckle and chortle everytime I read it....

Think about when it was written...we were in the middle of a 5 loss big ten season...and I think everyone was wondering if we had one good "team" or if we were building a "program".

Losing games to Northwestern because a half-talent like Marcus Taylor has a concussion did not bode well for us.

I will go to my grave believing that Anderson, Hill, Torbert, and Bograkos are as responsible for making us a program as Cleaves, Bell, Mopete, and Granger.

By making a final four last year, they proved all the doubters (like Carty) wrong.

But when Carty wrote this, there was a real possibility of not even going to the NCAA tournament. We had to scrap and claw our way into the tournament 3 out of the 4 years those guys were there.

Do you realize that if Mo Ager doesn't hit that bomb 3 ptr and send the Minnesota game to overtime two years ago...we probably don't even get to lose in the first round to Nevada?

This article made me angry 4 years ago...and it looks foolish now...but frankly, Carty was perilously close to being spot on. An injury here or there...ya never know.

[David Giard]

Here is the part that cracks me up.

The University of Michigan, meanwhile, is this state's historically dominant basketball program, and Michigan kids will flock here over any other option if the Wolverines are decent.

I keep running into um fans who somehow believe it is their manifest destiny to get every good recruit in every sport. They deserve this because of the name on the building.

Forget about a great coach or a tradition of winning without cheating or a history of actually graduating players or kids staying out of trouble. The best kids in Michigan will simply "flock" to um as soon as the program gets to a decent level. How arrogant can people get?

[D.Wags]

Originally Posted by mighty mouth

Do you realize that if Mo Ager doesn't hit that bomb 3 ptr and send the Minnesota game to overtime two years ago...we probably don't even get to lose in the first round to Nevada?

This article made me angry 4 years ago...and it looks foolish now...but frankly, Carty was perilously close to being spot on. An injury here or there...ya never know.

And Magic team in 79 almost didn't make the NCAA's. And this and that, and what if's and almosts.

Here's the bottom line. Carty was wrong then, he's an idiot now. He wrote me a letter stating he would apologize if MSU was ahead of Michigan in this years standings. Think he will? I"m betting no. He's a homer.

If you "predict" the end of a program, a team or whatever long enough, one year you'll be right. Hell if Wob Parker keeps saying Izzo is leaving he'll be right once. That's not the point. The point is Carty is not a journalist, he's a homer, a Michigan homer and it's pathetic. Just another Ann Arbor sychophant who has his nose up the rear of the Michigan athletic department. So be it.

[Andy_H]

Originally Posted by Andy_H

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Izzo's gang no longer green giant

Wednesday, January 30, 2002

It'll be easy to remember when it became clear Michigan State's basketball dynasty had peaked and was on the way down.

Easy to remember because Tom Izzo himself delivered the message.

It was just last week. Izzo popped up on the television, in between games on ESPN, doing college basketball analysis in the middle of his own season. There he was, sitting next to some hair-sprayed anchor, talking basketball when he could be coaching it.

Writing his own obit to Michigan State's amazing run of three straight Final Fours, four straight Big Ten titles and the 2000 national championship.

Greatness takes everything you've got, sometimes more than you even think you can give. Izzo could have never built what he's built in Lansing by taking time out mid-season to play Howard Cosell on national television.

The fact that he's willing to do it now is proof in living color that on some level he's ready for a change. Make all the excuses you want about having a lot of time off between games or the ESPN gig being a fun way to promote the program, the bottom line is that basketball suddenly isn't enough to keep Izzo busy. He needed a getaway, a little fun, something different at a point in the season when most big-time basketball coaches are in the office 10 or more hours a day six or seven days a week.

Those are the kind of hours University of Michigan coach Tommy Amaker puts in.

Amaker has the drive and focus Izzo had back in 1995 when he replaced Jud Heathcote, when he had to prove he deserved the job, had to win over Mateen Cleaves and everybody else.

Amaker won't take time out to do 15 minutes on Detroit sports radio - he tells his media relations guy he's just too busy during the season - let alone give ESPN a day of his time. He and his staff don't have time to watch TV, let alone appear on it. They're mad, they're this bad and consumed by making sure they never are again.

Some folks will tell you Izzo can and will coach circles around Amaker. Maybe. They'll tell you Izzo is much, much better at promoting his program in the media. That's true, but nobody ever won a game that way.

They'll say the Spartans again outrecruited Michigan this year, and that this year's little slump in Lansing is to be expected, and that even in a bad year Michigan State will make the NCAA Tournament.

Maybe.

But maybe everyone has yet to grasp just how big a threat Amaker and Michigan are, just how hard it's going to be to maintain Michigan State's dynasty, even if Izzo's at his best.

If Amaker isn't the best young recruiter in America, he's close. At Seton Hall he attracted the nation's No. 1 recruit and No. 1 recruiting class to a school with on-campus facilities comparable to some Michigan community colleges, a school that sits on the outskirts of a Newark slum. They came for one reason: Kids and parents fall in love with and trust Tommy Amaker.

It's starting already here. Amaker may have already found his own Cleaves in Texas guard Daniel Horton. He's going to sign super junior Dion Harris of Detroit Redford next year, just watch, and Harris will only be part of yet another great class.

The University of Michigan, meanwhile, is this state's historically dominant basketball program, and Michigan kids will flock here over any other option if the Wolverines are decent.

What Izzo has accomplished the last four years towers over the Fab Five years at Michigan in terms of achievements, but for some reason Michigan State has never approached that Fab level of buzz outside of ... say ... Lansing and some Flint neighborhoods. The Fab Five were a national story. Every little kid with a pair of Jordans and a hoop in his neighborhood knew C Webb and the boys.

A lot of those kids are now going to the Nike or ABCD camps, and they remember those years. Most of them can't name four members of the five, but it doesn't matter. When it comes down to Michigan vs. Michigan State, Amaker vs. Izzo for a recruit, the Fabs are going to be a tie-breaker. Mark it down.

Izzo's been lucky up until now, he hasn't had to really deal with Michigan. He's received a huge boost in his program building by circumstances like the Ed Martin scandal, the ugly end of the Steve Fisher era, the inability of Brian Ellerbe to figure out he needed good kids, not just good players, to succeed at Michigan.

This isn't to say Izzo and the Spartans are done now, mind you.

They'll probably beat the heck of Amaker and Michigan tonight at the Breslin Center.

They need to. The free pass has been canceled. Michigan vs. Michigan State is an even fight again, and it's going to be a fight. The Spartans are ahead now, and will be a factor as long as Izzo is in Lansing, but in the long run my money is on the guy who's too busy coaching to appear on the radio.

9th consecutive NCAA for MSU, 8th consecutive miss for UM bump

[steve81]

Carty was on with Ebling the other day on 92.1 and said hewas/is "embarrassed" that he had so much faith in Tommay Turtleneck at the time. He actually has been real critical of Amaker lately.

[Stubarino]

Originally Posted by Andy_H

9th consecutive NCAA for MSU, 8th consecutive miss for UM bump

Send this thread to Carty. What an idiot.....Greg Doyle on the other hand....

[Andy_H]

Originally Posted by Stubarino

Send this thread to Carty. What an idiot.....Greg Doyle on the other hand....

He's probably been emailed about this column hundreds of times.