Tom Izzo has a Michigan State basketball team that embodies him again. It's been a while

EAST LANSING — Tom Izzo likes his team. He said this in the summer, in the fall and he said it again late Friday night after his Michigan State basketball squad held off Villanova at the Breslin Center, 73-71.

“It’s a tougher team,” he said. “It’s a together team.”

It’s a recognizable team for anyone who has followed the Spartans for a while. The kind of team that has shaped Izzo’s identity as a coach, the kind of team that helped build his legacy, the kind of team we haven’t seen in East Lansing the last few seasons.

Whether it’s a Final Four team is a different question, though it resembles a few of his teams that have made Final Four runs: fierce guard play, disciplined defensively (especially in the gaps), a big man who isn’t likely an NBA player but who centers the back line of the defense and vacuums rebounds in traffic.

That junior Mady Sissoko got the loudest ovation during introductions isn’t surprising after his effort against Gonzaga’s Drew Timme on the USS Abraham Lincoln in San Diego and against Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe in the Champions Classic in Indianapolis.

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Sissoko is the kind of player that has kept MSU in the NCAA tournament for the past couple of decades. He’s also a reminder of an underrated aspect of Izzo's program: Players get better.

Sissoko's improvement over a year ago — heck, from two years ago — stunned just about anyone familiar with the program ... except for those inside it, who witnessed the 6-foot-9 center work over the summer. Still, it’s one thing to tighten the handle or improve a jump shot. It’s another to return with footwork, balance and relative court awareness.

The junior struggled Friday against Villanova’s Eric Dixon, a cement-built forward with fleet feet and soft hands. That Izzo was disappointed in his play — not his effort — says everything about the way Sissoko has changed what’s expected of him.

It’s early, but it’s fair to say the expectations of the team are changing, too. That’ll happen when you lose to Gonzaga by a point and beat Kentucky in double OT and finish the grueling stretch with a win over the other Wildcats, merely a Final Four team last season.

“I’m not sure many people thought we’d be 3-1,” Izzo said. “We’ve played some very good minutes of basketball.”

And, he said, some not-so-good minutes, like the last 10 against Villanova when MSU let let a 16-point lead shrink to one. Give the Wildcats credit for making tough shots and for showing their trademark grit, a trait established under former coach Jay Wright and a trait current coach Kyle Neptune redoubled when he took over for Wright in the spring.

“It was a fistfight,” Izzo said. “I told my team (Villanova) will be the toughest team we play all year as far as physically tough.”

Izzo, of course, built his program on similar ideals. And, at this point, it’s almost cliché to mention that rebounding and defense are the staples. But they are. They just weren’t as evident over the past two seasons.

Not that those teams were soft. They were just uneven and disjointed. They also lacked the classic Izzo guard play.

This year’s squad has three guards that love to defend and rebound — they crashed the boards hard all night.

“We have no choice,” said Izzo.

He has had teams in years past that haven’t had a choice, either, but they didn’t have A.J. Hoggard, Tyson Walker and Jaden Akins attacking the defensive glass (and attacking the offensive rim, too, for that matter).

They combined for 12 boards and 44 points, with no points more electric than Akins' tomahawk dunk on a runout midway through the second half, no points more important than Hoggard’s bully drive to the rim with a minute left to push MSU’s lead to four, no points more momentum-swinging than Walker’s six straight on a series of pull-up midrange jumpers.

The flurry pushed the lead to 16 with eight minutes to go, and in a perfect world that would’ve been the game. But Akins had just injured his leg and the defensive pressure sagged on the perimeter and Hoggard started turning the ball over after going 30 minutes without one.

His attempted lob to Sissoko was the sort of unforced error that can kill momentum, and the sort of decision that Izzo has been trying to excise from Hoggard’s floor game. Two more turnovers in the next couple of minutes and Villanova took advantage.

“If he’s gonna help lead this team, we can’t have that,” Izzo said. “I said there are going to be consequences to turnovers now. You’re going to see some guys come out of games for turnovers.”

Hoggard sat. Just as he'll do if he continues to try difficult plays when simple ones will do. To his credit, Hoggard didn't play that way against Gonzaga and Kentucky — if he continues passing on those temptations, he’ll become one of the better point guards in the Big Ten.

Just as Walker is emerging as one of the best scorers in the Big Ten. The second-year transfer from Northeastern needed a year to get comfortable in Izzo’s program and to convince himself he belonged at this level. He demanded the ball down the stretch Friday and let Izzo and his teammates know in the huddle that it was his time.

“He challenged me and everybody else,” Izzo said. “I like that.”

Izzo is seeing this in all sorts of places on his roster. From his guards to his big man to his forwards — a pair of seniors who have all-court shotmaking ability but never attached their talent to supreme belief.

Malik Hall and Joey Hauser know what they can do now. More critically, they believe in what they are doing. Hauser didn’t take enough shots against Villanova — just seven on Friday night —after knocking down a couple of 3s early. And Hall sat for a long stretch in the second half with foul trouble.

Both came through the lean years — by MSU standards — and are playing as freely as they ever have. That’s a kind of toughness, too.

Where all this leads is hard to say, but Izzo is having fun again. His team embodies his spirit, and that usually leads to fun winters — and springs — in East Lansing.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: This Michigan State basketball team looks like a Tom Izzo classic