by Yoonsoo Kim

Created on: February 17, 2009

The best NCAA men's basketball coach is Tom Izzo, head coach for the Michigan State Spartans. Hired as head coach at Michigan State in 1995, Izzo is currently the longest-tenured basketball coach in the Big Ten Conference. Michigan State began a streak of eleven straight NCAA tournament appearances, which is the 5th longest current streak among Division I teams. Izzo's teams are known for guard play, toughness and rebounding. Izzo got attention when people learned of his "war" rebounding drills, in which the players have sometimes worn football helmets and shoulder pads. Tom Izzo knows how to get work down with his Michigan State Spartans. He is the best NCAA men's basketball coach. Eight McDonald's All-Americans have played for Tom Izzo at MSU (Mateen Cleaves - 1996, Jason Richardson - 1999, Zach Randolph - 2000, Marcus Taylor - 2000, Kelvin Torbert - 2001, Paul Davis - 2002 and Shannon Brown and Brandon Cotton - 2003). Six Spartans (Charlie Bell, Mateen Cleaves, Paul Davis, Drew Neitzel, Morris Peterson and Jason Richardson) have earned some form of All-America honors, while Chris Hill was a three-time Academic All-American and was named the 2005 "ESPN The Magazine" Academic All-American of the Year and 2005 Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar of the Year by "Black Issues In Higher Education Magazine." Eighteen different players have earned all-Big Ten conference recognition. The Michigan State Spartans also won the NCAA championship in 2000 led by their coach, Tom Izzo. They also reached to four final fours in the years Tom Izzo took over the Michigan State Spartans.

Having recently completed his 13th year directing the Spartan program, head coach Tom Izzo has compiled an impressive list of accomplishments, including one NCAA National Championship, four regular-season Big Ten Championships, two Big Ten Tournament titles, four Final Four appearances, four National Coach of the Year awards and a Big Ten-best 11 straight NCAA Tournament appearances. Izzo's 305 wins are the seventh most by any coach in his first 13 seasons in the history of college basketball. In the NCAA Tournament, Izzo is at his best, winning at a clip of .722 to rank sixth among all active coaches with at least 10 tournament games coached. In 2005, Izzo led MSU to its fourth Final Four in the last seven seasons, becoming the only team to accomplish that feat between 1999 and 2005 and just the eighth team in college basketball history to do it in any seven-year span. Izzo also became just the second coach in NCAA history to reach four Final Fours in his first 10 years of coaching

Tom Izzo is the best NCAA men's coach in basketball

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