EAST LANSING — Jaxon Kohler remembers the first time he yelled during a basketball game. At first a football player who found his calling on the hardwood, Kohler watched on TV as stars like Kevin Durant let their emotions loose when they drew an and-one. He wanted to be just like them.
“When I first started doing it, I just thought I was just yelling because I wanted to, right?” Kohler said. “Like, I’m gonna be like K.D.”Always a loud kid, he reminisced, Kohler also remembers when his dad sat him down and explained to him just what that yelling really meant. Not only was it meant to give himself energy and hype up his teammates, but it also showed the other players on the court who had the energy. Standing about a foot taller than everyone else, Kohler was in charge.
It’s that same roar that has echoed through Breslin Center at times this season, one of many expressions of energy that have helped Michigan State (27-6) en route to a Big Ten regular-season championship. Kohler’s yell and Tre Holloman’s witty banter are among the verbal manifestations. Jeremy Fears Jr.’s wagging finger and Coen Carr’s explosive dunks are among the physical. Even Tom Izzo’s button-pressing outbursts over calls have made an impact. And all of this energy is important as the Spartans enter the NCAA Tournament as a No. 2 seed, with a first-round game against No. 15 seed Bryant slated for 10 p.m. Friday in Cleveland.
The emotions are never higher than in the NCAA Tournament, when a loss ends a season and a win gets teams one step closer to history. Those raised stakes raise the impact of high-energy plays, but also the cost. A poorly timed display of emotion can cause a game-altering call. Players can find themselves on the wrong side of a whistle in a snap. Emotions must be controlled, or else games can flip on their heads.
“You gotta find the happy medium,” Izzo said. “You really do.”
Michigan State knows this all too well. The reason the Spartans watched from Breslin Center on Selection Sunday is because of a close loss to Wisconsin the day before. One of the big swings in momentum came when Holloman snapped at a referee, earning a technical foul that caused a five-point swing for the Badgers.
“Next time, there isn’t a next time,” Holloman said Saturday. “So I gotta learn now from it, and just let my game do the talking.”
It’s a similar lesson to what Kohler learned at a young age, before he hung up his cleats in favor for some basketball shoes. When he celebrated on the football field, he usually ended up on the wrong side of the whistle because of how much bigger he was compared to other kids. He learned to yell in directions — up, down, to the side — instead of yelling in someone’s face.
“I think that’s eventually why I quit,” Kohler said, smiling, “is because every time I yelled, I was a foot taller than everybody else and they thought I was just being a jerk.”
Eventually, Kohler learned to control his emotional nature — or rather, to time when he lets it out. All these years later, those same yells on the court are a positive influence on his teammates, and he could be letting them loose in March Madness. But he does have to balance the risk versus reward, just like his teammates.
“It’s part of my DNA in terms of giving energy and providing emotional energy,” Kohler said. “And knowing that it’s (the NCAA) tournament could add pressure, but it also just kind of makes it more fun to kind of give off that energy.”
Added Carr, “We don’t want to let our emotions get in front of us, take us away from the main goal. We definitely try to show emotion out there, but we try to keep it calm, too, and stay focused.”
Carr might be the perfect example of how to balance it all, because his energy-seeking plays are a direct part of the game. There’s nothing extra-curricular about his highlight reel dunks, and there’s nothing to be overlooked about their impact on a game. They’re spirit-crushing blows when opposing teams can pull ahead, like he showed in a win over Iowa earlier this month when he dunked Michigan State to a lead it never lost.
In the boiling point of the season, don’t expect Michigan State to abandon the high-energy plays that are part of players’ nature. They’re bold and brash examples of what brings this team together, and what can empower a deep run in March. So long as the Spartans keep their emotions under control, this energy could be an X-factor the rest of the way.