If it sounds like politicking, it usually is, especially in the middle of a campaign. That’s as true for college basketball coaches as it is for presidential candidates in an election year.
But even if truth-in-advertising laws don’t apply in either case, there is something to be said for what we’re hearing in the Big Ten this winter. Because it matches what we’re seeing.
In a word, it’s parity, the likes of which Michigan State’s Tom Izzo — the dean of Big Ten coaches — insists he hasn’t seen before. Not in a quarter-century as the Spartans’ head coach, or even the dozen years before that as an assistant under Jud Heathcote.