My Two Cents: This is Dane Fife's Game, In More Ways Than One
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Dane Fife was one of Bob Knight's all-time favorite players, for a lot of reasons. Toughness and tenacity ranked right up there, but loyalty was always at the top of the list.
The Clarkston, Mich,, native became a fan favorite, too, during his time at Indiana from 1998 to 2002. He wasn't much of a scorer, but he was a tenacious defensive player and a great team leader. He loved his time at Indiana, and is a Hoosier through and through. And being a Michigan native, fans in both Ann Arbor and East Lansing were always rough on him.
Fife came home this spring after new Indiana coach Mike Woodson offered him a job on his staff. It was a tough decision, because he had spent the last 11 years at Michigan State as Tom Izzo's right-hand man. They were a terrific team, and accomplished a lot.
On Saturday, Fife is back in East Lansing, this time back on the Indiana bench trying to match wits with Izzo, the Hall of Famer.
Indiana's three assistant coaches divide the scouting reports and game plans for opponents, with Fife, Kenya Hunter and Yasir Rosemnd dividing up the games a third, a third and a third.
Michigan State, for very obvious reasons, is a Fife game.
"Even when I was in the NBA with all my coaches that worked around me, we would break the season down, and we've done the same thing here,'' Indiana coach Mike Woodson said Friday. "Dane and Ya and Kenya, they split games, so, yes, this is Dane's scout.
"I mean, this has to be his scout. He spent most of his time coaching at Michigan State, so what better person would know Izzo and his thinking and the players that he coached here in past years. This is his scout, and we will rely on some of the things he tells us, but again, we all watch film and come to a conclusion on how we want to play on both ends of the floor, and we're still trying to work on finishing the game plan as we speak.''
Michigan State is 17-6 on the season, and 8-4 in the Big Ten. They're ranked No. 17 in the country right now, but were in the top-10 three weeks ago before some recent struggles. '
They've lost two in a row — that's the first time it's happened all year, just like Indiana — and four of their last seven games. But they are still very good, and will surely be a handful for Indiana on Saturday. They are shooting 38.8 percent from three-point range, second in the Big Ten behind Purdue.
The game starts at 3:30 p.m. ET.
"Even in our pick-and-roll coverages, we've got to be sharp in what we're doing,'' Woodson said. "When that ball is thrown back, we've got to make sure that we're getting back to shooters, and our schemes when we're switching and things of that nature, you're going to have to switch up and make sure we're not giving these guys their shots where they're comfortable in making threes.
"We've done a pretty good job of defending the three-point line and we know that we're going to have to do a hell of a job against this team, because they do put up a lot of threes, and they make them.''
The Spartans are also solid on the defensive end, and for an Indiana team that's had trouble scoring lately, that could be an issue.
"They're pretty good defensively. They get up in you, and they really make you have to work to score the basketball,'' Woodson said. "That's everybody, all five guys that are on the floor, kind of on a string from a defensive standpoint. I just think they're a solid team. Izzo has always had good teams on both ends of the floor. I don't see anything differently. They compete, man. They play hard. That's a big part of it.''
Michigan State has a lot of veteran players up front in Gabe Brown, Malik Hall, Joey Hauser and Marcs Bingham Jr. Point guard Tyson Walker, a transfer from Northeastern, has been an upgrade at the position Max Christie is a leading candidate for the Big Ten's top freshman honor.
"Max is a young freshman that's very lively that knows how to play. He's not your typical freshman,'' Woodson said. "That's kind of how I look at it. He's long and rangy and athletic, and he can put it down (on dribble-drives) and he can shoot it, as well. The thing about their offense is they put so much heat on you when you score, they try to get it in as quick as possible, and then they push it back at you. We've really got to focus in on getting back in transition and make sure we're matching to the point where they're not just running it up our backs.
"That's going to be a big key. They are talented out front, but we've played a lot of talented guards. The defense hasn't really been the problem for us.''
Scoring is still the issue, though, and it has to change on Saturday if the Hoosiers are going to come away with a victory.
"Offensively, we've had our struggles in terms of making the long ball and just completing offensive plays over the course of a 40-minute game,'' Woodson said. "We've had good halves, bad halves, we've put two good halves together. It's kind of been a roller coaster ride in that regard, but we're going to have to find some offense, and our defense has got to stay consistent if we're going to beat Michigan State.''
For Fife, he knows the challenge ahead because he recruited a lot of the guys on Michigan State's roster. He did a terrific job there for Izzo, and his time at Michigan State really means a lot to him.
Sure, he's a Hoosier, but this is a special trip for him, too. He's got lots of great memories here — and he'd love to add another one.
Izzo, though, deals with adversity well. After a home upset loss to Northwestern, they had six days to prepare for their next game, and beat Wisconsin in Madison. Izzo knows his Spartans haven't played well the past two games — a blowout loss at Rutgers and a home loss to Wisconsin on Tuesday — and you have to expect that he'll have that fixed for Indiana on Saturday.
“We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to get a little tougher. I haven’t had many teams that I’ve had to worry about that with, but I’ve got to worry about that with this team,'' Izzo said. "Because, you saw it, you watched it. I thought every loose ball, [Wisconsin] got. And I thought every loose ball at Rutgers, they got.
"Is it fixable? Yeah, it’s fixable. It’s always fixable, but we’ve got to do a much better job (against Indiana). So, we’ll go to work on it, I promise you that. That is going to be the task that this coaching staff has in the next three days. But, it’s not like it hasn’t been there all year. It’s a little bit of lack of leadership and a little bit of, as coaches, we have to do a better job. That’s the bottom line – we have to do a better job. So, I am putting it all on me, and I’m going to figure out a way. I’ve had coaches call, ‘Don’t ever blame yourself.’ Check this out – I have to do a better job. The team doesn’t play with the toughness, the tenacity – that falls on my shoulders, and I’m going to take every bit of it, and figure out a way that we do it differently, hopefully on Saturday. It’s not like this has been all year. It’s not like we haven’t played with any pizazz, because we have.”
Izzo might be missing Fife a little bit these days, because Fife coaches like he played, tough and tenacious. It's great that he's back home in Indiana.
But this we know for sure. This is a very big game on Saturday for Dane Fife, for a whole lot of reasons.
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- SUSPENDED PLAYERS RETURN: Indiana coach Mike Woodson said his Hoosiers had a good practice on Thursday after his five suspended players returned to the team, and they're hard at work preparing for a huge challenge at No. 17 Michigan State on Saturday. CLICK HERE
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