Couch: Izzo's 500th win another improbable milestone

There were times when the idea of Tom Izzo ever reaching 500 wins at Michigan State would have made for an absurd discussion.

And then times later on when it appeared he wouldn’t stick around East Lansing long enough to see such a milestone.

Now, the only question is where he’ll finish in Big Ten and college basketball lore. Izzo has been No. 1 in wins at MSU for a long time — since this weekend six years ago, in fact, when he passed his predecessor, Jud Heathcote (340 wins).

MSU won its 500th game of the Izzo era Thursday, beating Boston College in the quarterfinals of the Wooden Legacy tournament in suburban Los Angeles — an event named for legendary UCLA coach John Wooden. Wooden won 664 games in his coaching career. Izzo could realistically catch him if he coaches six more seasons at his current pace.

Think about that. No right-minded soul could have imagined Izzo and Wooden in the same breath 20 years ago, back when Izzo’s MSU tenure began with a narrow victory over Division-II Chaminade at the Maui Invitational. Or two years later, after losing to the University of Detroit for the third straight year. Spartan fans were grumbling heading into the Big Ten opener at Purdue.

MSU’s 74-57 win on Dec. 30, 1997, in West Lafayette, Ind., changed everything — and began an ongoing 18-year stretch that’s put MSU's program in elite company and Izzo in a stratosphere with the greatest ever to coach this game.

Here’s the resume: 18 straight NCAA tournaments, 13 Sweet 16s, nine regional finals, seven Final Fours, seven Big Ten championships and, of course, the 2000 national championship.

And now, 500 wins.

For further perspective, he’ll roll right by Gene Keady’s 512 wins at Purdue sometime this January, making Izzo the second-winningest Big Ten coach all-time — behind only Indiana’s Bob Knight, who won 661 games in 29 seasons at Indiana.

Like Wooden’s career mark, Knight’s Big Ten record isn’t out of reach.

Five-hundred wins, on its own, isn’t such a rare feat. Sixty other Division I coaches throughout history have won more than Izzo — from legends Dean Smith (899), Adolph Rupp (876) and Knight (899), to contemporary coaching stars Mike Krzyzewski (1,028) and Billy Donovan (502), and several who either began early enough or found a way to stick around long enough, or both.

Career wins isn’t a measurement of impact or acumen. Rick Barnes, for example, somehow has 612 wins. The late great Rick Majerus finished with 517.

For Izzo, 500 wins at MSU is less representative of where he stands on the all-time coaching ladder than it is a symbol of his consistent success and his loyalty to one institution — a place that not so long ago had a middling men’s basketball program.

Five-hundred wins later …

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.

Izzo Milestones

100th win: Indiana on Jan 11, 2000, in East Lansing

200th win: Iowa on Feb 4, 2004, in East Lansing

300th win: Iowa on Feb. 23, 2008, in East Lansing

400th win: Minnesota on Jan. 25, 2012, in East Lansing

500th win: Boston College, Nov. 26, 2015, in Fullerton, Calif.