Jase Richardson is on his way to hearing his name called in this month’s NBA Draft, and the Richardson name will once again be stitched on the back of an NBA jersey.
Both Jase and his father, Jason, of course, played for Michigan State, and both blossomed into college basketball stars.
And they both played under Tom Izzo, yet in two very different stages of his career.
When Jason played at Michigan State and went to back-to-back Final Fours, Izzo was just coming up as a head coach, but he was thriving. He had taken the Spartans to three consecutive Final Four appearances, winning a national title in the middle year.
Fast forward to Jase’s tenure, and Izzo is now one of the oldest and longest active head coaches in college hoops, and his resume speaks for itself: a national championship, 11 Big Ten titles, eight Final Four appearances, 27-straight NCAA Tournament appearances and four Big Ten Coach of the Year awards.
“I enjoyed it (his time under Izzo), ” Jase said when he and his father recently joined “Podcast P with Paul George.”
“I already knew kind of coming in what it was going to be. I mean, I’ve had somebody (Jason) that went through it for two years. So, I already knew what I was walking into. And he’s (Izzo) demanding, but it comes with love, it comes with love. Everything he says is out of love.
“He cares way more about you off the court than he does on the court. So, whatever he says on the court, you really got to take with a grain of salt because he really truly cares for who you are as a young man.”
Jason explained the differences in their experiences.
“See, he got the ‘old school twilight years’ Izzo,” Jason said. “I got the more rugged Izzo where it was yelling, grabbing you in your face. But what he (Jase) said is all true. It was never personal. Even though he’s demanding, it was for the best of you. He always tried to pull the best out of you, and it worked.
“It helped my career tremendously going to Michigan State. I could have went to any college in the country, besides Duke and North Carolina, that I would have probably been starting. I was an All-American, I was top five in my class, but I knew at Michigan State I was going to learn from a guy that — he’s very demanding, he’s going to help me get to the next level.
“And I had two pros there in Mateen Cleaves and Morris Peterson that I could learn from that I could learn from. So, I was coming off the bench, but I knew I had to be there because it was going to help me get to the next level.”
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