Shawn Windsor

Detroit Free Press

EAST LANSING – Tom Izzo is always searching. That’s never gonna change.

Most years it takes him until mid- or late-February to figure out his team.

Some years even later — like last year, when MSU found itself in the Big Ten tourney and used that weekend to amp up for its run to the Final Four.

Back in November, this didn’t look like one of those years. MSU looked like it knew who it was from the start.

But, boy, did the Spartans look lost Thursday night at the Breslin Center, when Iowa came in and outworked, outplayed and downright out-toughed MSU. That last one was particularly painful for Izzo, who admitted after the game he’d had a sit-down with his star player earlier in the week to discuss the absence of that very trait.

“The tougher team won,” said Izzo, almost biting his lip. “The most aggressive team gets things, and they did. I mean, I can’t hide behind it. It hurts me to admit it, but they did it twice … we’re going to have to regroup.”

Yes, they are.

And not just in the mind, but in the rhythm of how it plays, and how Izzo and his staff substitute. Too many times he had two players on the court that couldn’t shoot. No, I don’t mean couldn’t shoot Thursday night. I mean … can’t shoot.

Or don’t want to shoot.

At some point Izzo is going to have to see what he’s truly got with Deyonta Davis and Eron Harris. The big man and the shooting guard are too gifted offensively. MSU needs that production, especially when Bryn Forbes and Denzel Valentine struggle.

But even beyond that, Izzo used 13 players, which is too many when playing a team that understands what it wants. Frankly, that’s too many against teams that don’t.

“We had some weird lineups in there,” he admitted.

In part because he kept looking for one that could slow Iowa’s attack: The Hawkeyes hit nine three-pointers in the first half on its way to 47 points. And in part to find a group that could make more shots.

He was searching, which is understandable when a game starts to get away from you, but it’s something he’s been doing all season. The record — now 16-2 — did a good job of hiding this.

So did all that unselfish play and shot-making and ball movement, usually orchestrated by Valentine, who played his second game back since missing four games because of a knee injury.

The player of the year candidate didn’t show us his typical skill and savvy. He opened the game with a three but couldn’t quite take hold of the game.

“They dictated pretty much the whole game,” he said. “Whenever they wanted to play good defense, we turned it over or tried to bash it out. Then on (offense), whenever they wanted to drive or make a play, they made plays.”

This was hard to figure because MSU had vowed to compete in the rematch — Iowa blistered a Valentine-less group in Iowa City in late December. The Spartans entered that game ranked No. 1, and Iowa, which had lost its last nine to MSU, played that night as if it were exorcising the green-and-white ghost.

Having freed itself, the Hawkeyes took the court Thursday night — in a place where it hadn’t won since 1993 — with a jaunty and confident gait. Iowa knew it was the better team, at least for now.

Meanwhile, as Valentine said, “we didn't, for whatever reason, come ready to play like we should. We didn't have the sense of urgency we needed to.”

That’s inexcusable for a team with designs on another late-season push, to finish what it started last March with the unexpected run to the Final Four. Yet part of this uncertainty is surely the uncertainty in the rotation, in the weekly search for the best seven or eight players to take this team forward.

“We are trying to find some lineups,” Izzo said.

It’s a familiar pattern, and should be a reassuring one, too, even if it felt like the eternal quest for identity wouldn’t be so fraught this year.

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.