As a lifelong Spartan, I’ve seen every variety of team roll through East Lansing. Flashy scorers. Defensive grinders. Tournament flukes. I’ve seen Izzo-coached squads claw their way to Final Fours, grind out ugly wins, and fall short with squads that looked golden on paper. But this year’s squad? It’s something else entirely. Something I’ve never seen before.
It’s not the most athletic team Izzo’s ever had. Not the flashiest. Definitely not the most star-studded. But it might be the smartest, most cooperative, and most internally organized unit he’s ever coached.
They don’t just play together. They think together.
They pass before a cutter even signals. They close out like a pack of wolves, not a collection of individuals. And when you watch them long enough, you start to realize—it’s not just talent. It’s structure. It’s literally science.
Let me explain.
I’m what you might call an academic descendant of Elinor Ostrom, the first (and still only) woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. She cracked a problem economists had been chewing on for decades—how groups manage shared resources without falling into chaos. The classic example: too many fishermen, not enough fish. But Ostrom found that cooperation didn’t need to be enforced from the top-down. Groups—when prudently structured—could govern themselves just fine.
She outlined a set of what she called the Core Design Principles—eight universal elements that all strong groups tend to share, regardless of cultural context. These principles work for neighborhood associations, small tribes, global cooperatives, corporations—and, as it turns out, college basketball teams.
Let’s walk through them.
(1) Clear Group Identity and Shared Purpose
This MSU squad knows who they are. There’s no superstar ball-hogging for scouts. No Instagram highlight-hunters. Their identity is collective. Their purpose isn’t individual glory—it’s winning together. You see it in the way they celebrate a loose-ball recovery like a game-winner. You see it in the way the bench erupts for an assist, not a dunk. No locker room divides between vets and freshmen. The identity is clear: team-first, ego-last.
Take Jaden Akins, now a senior. He could easily try to headline this team in his final year, but instead he plays within the system, picks his spots, and leads by example. Jase Richardson, the highly touted freshman (and yes, son of Spartan legend Jason Richardson), could be tempted to play hero ball. But he’s slotted himself neatly into a supportive role—more Bruce Bowen than Allen Iverson. That’s not humility—it’s group alignment.
And look at Tre Holloman—he could start on most Big Ten teams, but accepts his role as a spark plug off the bench without ego. They all buy into one identity: the team is the star.
(2) Fair Distribution of Costs and Benefits
Everyone eats—and everyone sweats for it. You’ll see Carson Cooper diving on the floor for loose balls just as often as you’ll see him dunking. You’ll see Coen Carr, a walking highlight reel, running decoy cuts to free someone else.
Even Frankie Fidler, the new senior transfer, has slotted in without disrupting the rhythm. He scores when needed, but never hijacks the offense. The benefits—points, minutes, accolades—are spread as evenly as the defensive assignments.
(3) Participatory Decision-Making
Izzo’s not micromanaging this team. He doesn’t need to: “I don’t really need to coach this group much. They coach themselves.” That’s not modesty. That’s structure. The team has built a self-regulating culture. Players correct each other mid-game, mid-huddle, even mid-free throw. Not with finger-pointing, but with mutual accountability.
On the floor, Tre Holloman is practically a second coach—calling out defensive adjustments before the bench even twitches. And Jeremy Fears Jr., back from injury and playing like he never left, has a presence that belies his age. He’s often the one barking out rotations, settling nerves, and acting as the go-between when Izzo starts lighting someone up. Think of him as the translator—fluent in both basketball and Izzo, with the latter being quite an evolved skill.
This is what social scientists call self-governance—and it’s rarer in sports than a drama-free postgame press conference between Michigan State and their little brother, Michigan.
(4) Monitoring Behavior Internally
This squad is held together by a kind of peer-pressure harmony. Miss a switch, and it’s not Izzo screaming from the sideline—it’s Akins clapping you on the back, not in celebration, but as a coded message: “Lock in.”
(5) Graduated Consequences for Missteps
Izzo has always believed in second chances, but this team polices itself first. You can spot it during timeouts: veterans pulling younger players aside, correcting calmly but firmly.
When Freshmen Gehrig Normand took a quick, ill-advised three early in the season, he found himself stuck in the corner for the next few possessions—teammates simply didn’t look his way. Message received. And when he returned to form, so did the ball.
(6) Quick, Constructive Conflict Resolution
Conflict will always exist—just don’t let it linger.
During the December road game at Illinois, Fidler and Akins got tangled in a heated exchange after a defensive breakdown. By the next possession, they were fist-bumping and laughing. That’s the difference between fragile chemistry and durable trust.
(7) Earned Authority
Izzo still steers the ship, but he’s less a dictator than a tribal elder. He guides. He nudges. But he doesn’t micromanage. And that trust flows both ways—he’s created a space where leadership rotates fluidly. One game it’s the senior forward giving speeches. The next, it’s a freshmen guard calling out defensive switches. It works because respect isn’t a birthright—it’s behavior.
Hierarchy here isn’t based on class year or seniority. It’s about effort, cohesion, and game IQ. Jase Richardson, despite his age, often quarterbacked entire stretches late in the season because his game commands trust.
(8) Collaborative Relations with External Stakeholders
You’ll find the team eating in the same campus dining halls as other students. They talk with fans, not above them. When Izzo brings former players into practices—Draymond Green, Mateen Cleaves—it’s not for show. It’s a dialogue across generations.
This is a program that treats its community not as an audience, but as part of the team’s shared identity. There’s a wholeness to their ecosystem. Everyone feels like part of the machine, and that cohesion ripples outward. That’s not an accident—it’s part of the social glue at work.
All of this—every pass, every box-out, every chest bump—speaks to something deeper in the culture Izzo has built over the years. I’ve seen it with Barcelona under Guardiola. I saw it in Brady’s Patriots during their dynasty years. And oddly enough, I see it here too—in a college basketball team from East Lansing. It’s not just chemistry. It’s something biological. When a group functions like a single organism—coordinated, self-regulating, and unified in purpose—you’re watching evolution at work.
In evolutionary biology, we call this idea Multilevel Selection—the idea that groups, not just individuals, can be units of natural selection. Sometimes, oftentimes in sports, the most cooperative groups outcompete the most selfish individuals. And that’s exactly what we’re watching this year at Michigan State. They don’t out-talent their opponents. They out-cooperate them.
So yes, Izzo’s still pacing the sideline and losing his voice as always. But the real coaching—the quiet, constant, peer-to-peer instruction—is happening between passes, in defensive switches, in locker room moments we’ll never see.
Maybe this will end up being just another tournament run. But maybe—just maybe—it’s also a glimpse into something bigger. A blueprint, even, on how to build a winning culture, in sports and beyond.
Because if a dozen college kids can build a cooperative system with no egos, no hierarchy worship, and no drama—maybe there’s hope for the rest of us.
Or as Izzo might yell until he’s hoarse: pass the damn ball!
