Meet the Japanese student who was determined to learn about Tom Izzo, MSU hoops' toughness
Nate Atkins
EAST LANSING – Masato Nakamura danced in place outside of the Breslin Center, hands stuffed in a green Michigan State hoodie, hoping someone would let him inside.
It was the day before the Spartans would host Illinois, and he had a ticket to the game, but that wasn’t why he was shaking in the cold that afternoon.
He wanted inside Tom Izzo’s mind.
He knew this was all a risk from the moment he boarded the plane in Chicago, which was only five months after he boarded the one from Japan. A 23-year-old graduate student at the University of Chicago, he's studying the English language like he’s studying American basketball, just a day at a time. Now, he was going to show up the day before a game and try to find the words to convince one of the game’s most accomplished coaches to let him in.
He stood and shook for five hours. Then a Michigan State staffer spotted him and asked what he needed. He ran it by Izzo, and Izzo said to let him in.
They started with a conversation, with Nakamura telling the coach how he got here. He spent 10 years playing basketball in Japan before deciding he wanted to come to America to learn how to coach it. After enrolling at the University of Chicago while living with his aunt, he approached the basketball coach there and asked if he could follow the team, and soon he was filming practice every day and breaking it down with the staff.
Now, he wanted to ask another coach for the same.
“Tom Izzo, I respect him,” Nakamura said. “Just one time, I wanted to see him.”
Izzo is famous in Japan as well, Nakamura said, but not just because of his Hall-of-Fame resume with eight Final Fours. Nakamura could have scheduled a trip to North Carolina or Duke or Syracuse or Kentucky or anywhere else with a long-time, name-brand coach. But he came to Michigan State in search of a specific blend.
“This team is so famous because it is so tough,” Nakamura said. “In Japanese, weakness is physical."
Izzo was intrigued by this feeling that his program had wings that could span the globe. And so he brought Nakamura in to break down Michigan State film. Nakamura was struck by Izzo’s calmness and attention to detail.
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When they got to practice, he saw a different man emerge. Izzo was screaming through plays and assignments, determined to get his team ready for one of the biggest tests yet to the toughness his visitor had come to see.
Illinois was the nation’s leader in rebounding, keyed by two interior forces in 7-foot Kofi Cockburn and 6-9 Giorgi Bezhanishvili. Without the same size, Izzo needed a specific plan. He asked Marcus Bingham and Thomas Kithier to double-team Cockburn out of the paint and for the rest of his Spartans to jump the passing lanes Bezhanishvili used to get him the ball.
On Thursday night, from the row behind the Michigan State bench, Nakamura saw the plan come to life. Bingham played immensely bigger than his weight, pulling in 12 rebounds. Xavier Tillman could then save his energy for the offensive end, where he cashed in 19 points and six assists. The Spartans held Cockburn and Bezhanishvili to 11 points combined and pulled away for a 76-56 victory.
They did it in front of a raucous crowd of Izzone alumni, but they also did it for an admirer from far away. Nakamura beamed after the game ended, for he saw what he hoped to see.
“I want to be a national coach in Japan. I am going to beat USA in the future," he said with a laugh.
"I want to imitate Michigan State in Japan.”
Contact Nate Atkins at natkins@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @NateAtkins_.