ATLANTA — It’s a game Tom Izzo remembers well.

His Michigan State team met Chris Beard’s Texas Tech team in a national semifinal in April 2019 in Minneapolis.

The Red Raiders won, 61-51.

Izzo didn’t know Beard before that weekend. He subsequently got to know and admire the Bobby Knight disciple, and six years later, this time in State Farm Arena in Atlanta, the two men are set to square off again.

Ole Miss (24-11) and Michigan State (29-6) meet Friday at 6:09 p.m. CDT/7:09 p.m. EDT in the South Regional semifinals. The winner will face the Auburn-Michigan winner Sunday for the right to advance to next week’s Final Four in San Antonio.

Izzo admitted he watched some of the film from that game in Minneapolis this week before his team ventured from East Lansing to Atlanta.

"I'm crazy, but I'm not a masochist,” Izzo said “Why would I want to go back and watch something when I got my butt kicked?

In all fairness, I did watch a little bit of it one night, but not much because that's five years, six years ago. So much has changed in so many ways. I know, I watch Chris during the year, I watched him when he was at Texas, I watched him once they beat us and we actually did become friends.

“Of course I watch people that I respect and how they play, but every team is different. I think I know what his philosophy is, and I think he knows what mine is. So it wasn't like I went back and looked at something that didn't work out for me.”

Izzo is a big football fan, so if anything, watching some of that game made him question some of his pro football loyalties.

“In fact, when I looked at it, that famous quarterback was sitting in the stands,” Izzo joked, referring to Texas Tech alumnus Patrick Mahomes. “So I don't even know if I'm going to be a Chiefs fan. I mean, I love the guy, but now I don't know if I'm going to be a Chiefs fan anymore because he was there pulling for Texas Tech, which he should have been.

“No, I didn't spend much time on that film. I got enough work to look at all the film. I got 30 games to evaluate them now.”

As one would expect, the respect is more than mutual. Beard, a basketball junkie, oozes admiration for Izzo.

“We have a drill that we've done every day since 1999 at Fort Scott, Michigan State rebounding,” Beard said. “The college basketball game is better because of Coach Izzo's time in the sport. I look up to him.

“We try to build our programs over the years, so a lot of things in Michigan State in mind.”

Of course, a national semifinal six years ago will have no bearing on Friday’s tilt between the Rebels and the Spartans. It’ll be about players, not coaches, turnovers and shooting percentages, not history.

“Coach Izzo has coached in more of these than I think anybody in the history of college basketball, including second weekends and the third weekend too,” Beard said. “Luckily that won't have anything to do with the game. If they gave points on the scoreboard for the coaches' resumes before this game, we'd be a little bit behind to start.

“Coach Izzo, everybody in our game could talk to him. He's impacted the game in so many ways. It's like when I worked for Coach Knight, there was never anybody I talked to in the basketball world that didn't have some type of connection. Even if they never met Coach Knight, maybe they saw his first clinic, maybe they ran his offense, maybe they loved one of his stories or press conferences.

“It's the same thing with Coach Izzo. To me, he's Mt. Rushmore of this sport. To answer your question in a timely way, the first thing I think about is just his ability to adapt. He's coached in all these different eras of college basketball, he's had different players, different coaches, different rules, different styles of the game.

“Now here we are in the Name, Image, and Likeness and portal area and Michigan State here on the main stage. What's the common ingredient? It's Coach Izzo. I think he's one of the GOATs, and I think his ability to adapt and adjust through the changes of the game while still staying true to Michigan State basketball, which to me, I've never been to a practice live, I'm on the outside looking in, but in my opinion it's defense, rebounding, sharing the ball, playing the right way, team over self.

“A lot of the things that we built our program starting way back in 1999 at Fort Scott Community College, had been Michigan-based. When you tell somebody we want to be as tough as Michigan State, we want to rebound like Michigan State, then all of us in the basketball world understand what that means.”

Izzo, 70, said things really haven’t changed all that much since he took over as the head coach at Michigan State in 1995.

“I think at some time I've adapted too much to not realizing still what it takes to win championships,” Izzo said. "You’ve still got to defend, rebound, and run. Football, you've still got to block and tackle. Both sports you can't turn the ball over.

“We always make it more difficult than it really is because everybody wants to hear some new fancy phrase, but it's still the meat and potatoes, I think, are basically the same. If I've adjusted a little bit, I'm sure he's adjusted a little bit, but I don't think I've changed a lot.”

Izzo said he built his program off theft, something he continues to do to this day.

“Back then, I stole from Arkansas,” Izzo said. “I stole from Temple. I stole from Indiana, Purdue, Minnesota. I’m still stealing from Nick Saban and different football guys I know. I always say you can win games in a lot of different ways, but to win championships, it's pretty standard still. You've still got to be able to do things with some accountability and some discipline, and some of those guys taught me that best.”

And yes, Izzo has stolen some from Beard since that game in Minneapolis. The game “sucked,” Izzo said, but he learned from it.

“What I loved about him is I think we're kind of out of the same cloth,” Izzo said. “His teams are always tough. I thought we got punked up there. I thought we weren't ready for that, and we're usually the more physical team.

“I thought his team did a helluva job. It was a dogfight game, in it until the end, but they did beat us and deserved to beat us. So I gained respect for Chris then, just how he coached, how he was, and how he was after the game. He wasn't arrogant and this and that. He was -- and still is to this day.

“So, yeah, I have an appreciation for him as a coach and I have an appreciation for the way he coaches, and I have a real appreciation for how hard his team plays.”

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