EAST LANSING – There isn't much that puts Michigan State fans on edge like the rise of Michigan basketball, paired with a couple of recent NCAA tournament flops by MSU.

If there was one comfort the Spartan sports faithful could rely on, for the longest time, it was hoops. It was the safe counter to any water cooler argument. “Oh, yeah, well we’ve got Tom Izzo."

John Beilein has put a dent in that advantage. Check that: He’s neutralized it entirely.

Yet, any notion that the edge has swung decisively Michigan’s way, Beilein’s way, is a severe case of recency bias. Izzo is paying the price for last season’s NCAA tournament upset loss to Syracuse — it's the first time I’ve seen a such a large chunk of his fan base hold a grudge for so long — which coincided with the Wolverines' run to the championship game.

The Syracuse angst is less if Michigan’s run was shorter. And if the Middle Tennessee State shocker didn’t happen in the first round of the NCAA tournament two years earlier. Izzo is seen as underachieving of late, Mr. March failing at his own month. Beilein, meanwhile, is viewed as a basketball savant, who’s changing with the times and getting the most out of his teams. And beating MSU.

As these two programs and coaches get set to meet twice in two weeks, beginning this Sunday in Ann Arbor, the reality is this: Nothing really separates them.

“I’d say we’re morphing into similar teams and programs as the years go on,” MSU assistant coach Dane Fife said.

If you see a clear advantage either way, it’s through your own prejudices. Because in the nearly eight seasons since Beilein won his way off the hot seat in 2011 and the Wolverines truly gained their footing, here are the numbers:

MSU's record is 213-69. Michigan is 205-79.

MSU is 102-40 in Big Ten play. Michigan 94-48.

MSU has 13 NCAA tournament wins. Michigan 15.

MSU has one Final Four appearance. Michigan two.

Both have two Big Ten championships.

Against each other, they are 7-7.

The only real differences are in the eye of the beholder.

If you had to pick either Izzo or Beilein to coach your offense, you’d choose Beilein. Your defense, you’d peg Izzo. And yet, Beilein, whose offense is considered paradise for guards, is these days coaching a team known primarily for its stickiness on the other end of the court. Izzo, who’s in the Hall of Fame largely because of his “elbow-block help” defense, is coaching perhaps his most connected offense in 24 years on the bench. Each of them has a point guard that fits the other’s personality.

“It captures the essence of who Coach Beilein is,” said former Michigan assistant Bacari Alexander, who coached under Beilein from 2010-16, before spending two seasons as head coach at Detroit Mercy. “Coach Beilein, each season, has been willing to change based on what he has available on his roster. A lot of it is personnel driven.”

Bottom line: Both programs are beyond fortunate to have these two coaches and to be in the situations they’re in — as the top two programs in the Big Ten, the two most revered in the league on a national scale. Izzo built the Spartans from a middling program to a powerhouse. Beilein rescued Michigan from sinking into obscurity and, when all that was asked was a competitive and clean program, he made Michigan basketball big time again.

What other Big Ten program wouldn’t gladly trade places with either of them? MSU has been here a while. Conference rivals have come and gone for Spartans over the last two decades: Illinois, Ohio State, Wisconsin. Michigan looks like it’s gonna stick. That’s a tough pill for MSU fans. Michigan’s success evokes uneasiness.

MSU’s coaches, however, don’t see it that way. They don’t see the Wolverines as a direct threat.

“It doesn’t do us any good for them to be the doormat of the conference,” MSU assistant coach Mike Garland said. “For Tom and myself, we’ve always felt it’s great to have another good team in the state. It helps you more than it hurts. It really does. Kids, elite kids, they want to play against that competition. They want to play in the Michigan-Michigan State game and have it be big.”

Rarely in the Izzo-Beilein era has one program been a roadblock for the other, on the court or in recruiting. “They kind of recruit a different kind of player than we do,” Garland said. These aren’t the 1990s, when Izzo was coming up, back when the state was loaded with talent and the Wolverines had the upper hand.

Only once have they met in the Big Ten tournament championship (2014). Just once have they shared a Big Ten title (2012). When one of them has captured the regular-season crown without the other, never has the other been within striking distance. Never have they met in the NCAA tournament.

Still, both coaches and programs are tied to each other — their roots in the conference and their respective rises. And, to some degree, their approaches. Despite a few examples to the contrary, neither live in the one-and-done recruiting world. It doesn’t really suit either of them.

Both coaches were nearly fired.

’A state of despair’

Beilein doesn’t see the rivalry as Izzo does. Izzo is an insider, raised on the bitterness of it. He cut his teeth as an assistant and young head coach in the late 1980s and early '90s banging his head against a Michigan program he knew to be cheating. The site of Beilein doesn’t conjure up those memories. But the block ‘M’ will forever be a trigger.

Beilein came up through smaller colleges, before landing at West Virginia in 2002. That doesn’t mean MSU isn’t significant to his Michigan story. It can’t be just another game, as he used to say, when it’s the game that saves your hide and the program that’s your measuring stick.

In Beilein's fourth season, the Wolverines were 11-9 overall and 1-6 in the Big Ten, losers of six straight, when they rolled into East Lansing on a snowy night in late January 2011.

“At that moment, we were in a state of despair, searching for answers with a team we weren’t sure could compete night in and night out in the Big Ten,” Alexander said.

Michigan won, improbably, and kept winning – 9 of its next 11 to reach the NCAA tournament.

“That was the pivotal moment that helped shift the program,” Alexander said. “There was a lot of uncertainty, but we felt if we could have success against Michigan State, which was the class of the league, it could bolster our confidence as a program.”

Two years later, as Michigan competed in the national championship game, Alexander said it felt like they were finally on “equal footing” with MSU.

“I think it was in that moment that we started to attract local validation in terms of people throughout the state,” he said.

Beilein didn’t worry about these things, Alexander said.

He trained his staff to identify his type of player, with the skill set to fit his system and to forecast upside, based on age, wingspan, even high school language courses. Michigan landed a bevy of gifted offensive talents from all over the place and became a juggernaut on that end.

“Today, with a very talented group, the roster is constructed much differently,” Alexander said. “You’ve got one of the best on-the-ball defenders in the country in Zavier Simpson. You’ve got a great rim-protector back there in Jon Teske. Those are things we didn’t have before.”

“There’s a diligence about John Beilein that’s unique on its own,” Alexander continued. “Every day there is skill development going on. Imagine you attend a Five-Star Basketball camp every day. That’s taking place in Ann Arbor. What you find is players just continue to get better each week, each month, each year. The next week doesn’t matter, the next opponent doesn’t matter as much as improving each day. That’s what is the basis of his greatness in my opinion.

“He’s on the front lines during all of the workouts. So each player is getting what is required from them and what is needed from the head coach. That’s not always the case in other programs. He’s immersed himself in the developmental experience.”

The proof is in the arc of Michigan’s seasons under Beilein. Last year being a precise example. The Wolverines were playing like an NCAA tournament bubble team during a 7-3 start and wound up playing in the final college basketball game of the season.

Izzo refuses to give up on players – and ‘it’s cost him’

When Michigan played Villanova for the national championship last spring, Izzo and Co. were long since done, upset by Syracuse in the second round two weeks earlier — a 3 seed falling to an 11 on a horrid shooting night against a pain-in-the-butt zone defense at the end of a trying season.

Izzo will tell you he’d like to have that game and weekend back. He’s well known for powering through exhaustion to prepare his team on a short turnaround in the NCAA tournament. He didn’t have as much zest as usual before Syracuse, worn down by distractions that pulled him away from basketball.

Izzo has managed his roster this year better than last, when he had too many big men and difficult politics. Miles Bridges wanted to be a guard. Nick Ward needed to start. In hindsight, ideally, Bridges would have played power forward again and Ward would have come off the bench, with Jaren Jackson Jr. at center. It all seems so obvious now. Easier to write than do.

The reaction from fans to the Middle Tennessee State upset in the NCAA tournament two years earlier was simply heartbreak. Bad luck, it seemed. Last year was different. This was on Izzo for how he managed the game and how the parts of the season unfolded — namely two decisive losses to Michigan that adjusted the mood, well before the Syracuse loss.

It made for three straight years that the Spartans hadn’t reached the second weekend of the NCAA tournament. That had never happened previously in Izzo’s tenure, which, frankly, is remarkable.

It’s not something Izzo or his coaches have forgotten.

“We’re well aware of the fact that we haven’t been to the second weekend (in a while),” Fife said. “And we can give you great reasons why, but the results, our reality is, it’s something we worry about every day. We’ve got the pieces to do more than get to the second weekend.”

“We sense (the fan angst). Nobody has higher expectations for this program than Coach Izzo. That’s built into the rest of us. We’re paying attention to what goes on in our state, but I think this program is to the point that, we certainly want our fans happy, but I think something more powerful is when Cassius (Winston) has to answer to Draymond Green or Matt McQuaid has to answer to Denzel (Valentine) about not meeting our expectations.”

What drives Izzo, after seven Final Fours, eight Big Ten championships, 21 straight NCAA tournaments and a national championship, Fife surmises: “He was on the brink of being fired, at least in his mind.”

In December of 1997, early in Izzo’s third season, the natives were restless after two straight NITs and a slow start to Mateen Cleaves's sophomore season. Lansing State Journal editors even ran a survey asking readers if Izzo should continue as MSU coach. Ten weeks later, the Spartans were Big Ten champs.

“What drives him every day is he loves Michigan State, he’s appreciative of what the school did for him,” Fife continued. “In a way, he wants to please Jud (Heathcote). But I think he honestly just wants these guys to be part of championships. And still looking back on the brink of being fired, I think it drives him every day. I think aside from his incredible work ethic he learned when he was a little Yooper, just what’s so fascinating is how much time and effort and thought he puts into each player. It’s incredible.

“I was talking about him in comparison to another coach. ‘This coach is about himself. Izzo is about you.’ Why has this coach won a bunch of championships and Izzo has won one? Because Izzo doesn’t believe in my way or the highway. Izzo believes in (explaining) why my way will get you down that highway. It is about (the player), and I think that’s cost him a little bit.

“Because he doesn’t give up on players. He won’t give up on them. The easy route would be to say, ‘OK, go ahead and transfer, let’s go get a better player.’ He believes in kids, he believes in himself and he’s honest to a fault, right? He always says, ‘Well, recruiters, in this business, we’re all used car salesmen.’ ‘The problem is you’re not. Tell this kid he’s going to be a pro, tell him he’s a one-and-done, just get him here, we’ll figure it out.’ ”

Izzo won’t do it. So, like Beilein at Michigan, he and staff develop more kids than they send off to the NBA draft as freshmen and sophomores.

“Neither one of us pride ourselves on a full stock of one-and-done players,” Fife said. “It’s hard to win that way, it’s hard to keep a culture that way.”

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