Steve Mariucci was sitting in the back row on the press conference, watching his friend Tom Izzo at the podium, answering questions from the media about his team's 77-67 victory over Minnesota in the Big Ten Tournament.
Mariucci had taken in the game from the front row, just behind the Spartan bench, with former MSU head coach Mark Dantonio and former star Michigan State basketball player Mateen Cleaves to his right.
Mariucci is a former football coach who was the head coach of two NFL teams, the San Francisco 49ers (1997-2002) and the Detroit Lions (2003-2005). His friendship with Izzo goes back decades.
Spartans Illustrated caught up with him after Izzo's press conference.
"Here we are, it's March," Mariucci told Spartans Illustrated. "It's time. It's great to watch our team play and win and advance."
Michigan State pulled the game out in the end after a back and forth first 35 minutes.
"It's fun watching him coach and watching these kids respond," said Mariucci. "A good bunch of kids. I know they've been up and done, we all know that. It's time now to play your best ball."
In his press conference, Izzo was asked how his team was going to game plan for Purdue and their big man, Zach Edey. Izzo joked that he'd check in with Dantonio and Mariucci on how to handle it.
"(I'm being asked) maybe about the greatest player maybe in basketball in the past two years," Izzo said. "I am going to come up with something. I brought a couple of football coaches. My buddy Mariucci came. My buddy Mark Dantonio. I'm going to institute coaching from them. I'm going to institute a couple of players to bring up. Zach Edey is a helluva player, man. Talk about a guy that deserves credit."
"Dantonio and I are going to put in some blitzes, see if we can just knock somebody around," Mariucci said with a laugh. "So here we go, can't wait to see that game against Purdue."
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