Tom Izzo to the Cavs gets more intense, scheduled to visit Cleveland today

We've all heard the Izzo-to-the-Cavs rumors, but yesterday afternoon they exploded.

Cleveland blog Waiting For Next Year reported that Tom Izzo, in a closed door meeting with his team, told the Spartan players that he would be taking the Cleveland job. As you might expect, this set the twitter world on fire, as every big name college basketball reporter checked with their own sources, and each and every one proceeded to dispute the WFNY report.

The ironic part?

WFNY may very well be correct.

I'd be devastated if Izzo, one of the few major college basketball coaches that wins the right way, bolted for the NBA.
(photo credit: About.com)

Joe Rexrode, a beat writer covering Michigan State hoops, clarified Tuesday's meeting. Essentially, Izzo met with the players, told them about his talks with the Cavs, and allowed them to say their piece on the matter. They said they want him to stay in East Lansing, and he said a decision hasn't been made.

But that doesn't mean that Izzo is guaranteed to return to Michigan State.

According to Brian Windhorst, the Cavs beat writer for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Izzo has scheduled a trip today to tour the Cavs facilities. Izzo seems to be seriously considering this offer.

But will he take it?

Both Mike DeCourcy and Seth Davis have put out the warning to Izzo -- college success doesn't necessarily equal NBA success. Rick Pitino, John Calipari, and Mike Montgomery are just a few of the names that have flourished at the collegiate level, earning an NBA head coaching job. Where are they now? Louisville, Kentucky, and Cal, respectively.

As I mentioned the other day, it is because coaching in the NBA is a different beast than coaching in college. In college, coaching success hinders equally on the ability to recruits 16 and 17 year old kids to your school just as much as it does on the ability to create a game plan and produce an effective system. In college, you need to be a motivator, convincing those kids you recruit to keep both eyes away from the NBA and getting them to buy into your system.

In the NBA, its all about baby sitting. Can the coach corral the egos on the team? Can he make sure that everyone gets enough shots? Can he handle the fact that in the NBA, being a coach is less teaching the game and more managing talent?

Izzo is an instructor. A motivator. He is a teacher of the game. He creates meticulous game plans geared towards finding an opponent's weakness. I'd put money on Izzo having the largest playbook in all of major college basketball.

His team's are always talented, but they don't thrive on talent alone. Izzo wins because he gets his kids to play hard and to execute. That doesn't necessarily correlate to the NBA, as Pitino, Calipari, and Montgomery learned.

But in discussing college coaches in the NBA, what a lot of us fail to mention is that none of those coaches had good jobs.

If LeBron leaves Cleveland, then you can go ahead and throw Izzo on that list as well.

But keep in mind, coaching LeBron through his prime as a basketball player may very well be the best coaching job in all of sports. (Ed. Note: It now appears as if Izzo would be willing to consider the Cavs job even if LeBron is out of the picture.)

At $6 million a year, it might be worth the risk for Izzo to take the jump.