Midway through last season, Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo was so frustrated with Paul Davis that he called a face-to-face meeting with the Spartans center. It was too cold for Izzo to take Davis for a long walk across campus, so the coach drove his player around town. During that meeting, Izzo said, Davis floored him with an honest admission.
"Coach, I don't love the game," Davis told Izzo.
"I almost buckled over," Izzo recalled on Tuesday. "How could one of my guys say that? I wanted to kill him."
But during the drive back to Izzo's office at Breslin Center, Davis calmed his coach by telling him: "That's why I'm here. That's what you're here for." Davis was asking his coach to help him learn to love basketball, a game he had played all his life but never truly enjoyed.
"It's not like I hated the game," Davis said Tuesday. "But I was making it a job rather than making it something I could enjoy."
This season, Davis has played with a renewed passion. He averaged 12.2 points and 7.8 rebounds during the regular season and has played his best during the NCAA tournament. In victories over Old Dominion, Vermont, Duke and Kentucky, Davis has averaged 15 points and 10.8 rebounds.
Davis has given the fifth-seeded Spartans a strong post presence, which they will need in Saturday's national semifinal against top-seeded North Carolina at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. Tar Heels center Sean May is averaging 17.1 points and 10.9 rebounds during the tournament.
"Paul Davis is playing some of his best basketball," Izzo said. "He has rebounded the ball well for the last month and a half. I think he's getting stronger and wants the basketball. He has made us a better basketball team."
Davis, 6 feet 11 and 267 pounds, has recorded a double-double in each of the past three games, becoming the first Michigan State player to accomplish the feat during the NCAA tournament since Earvin "Magic" Johnson did it in four straight games in 1979, when he led the Spartans to the national championship.
"Paul Davis, in a sick kind of way, taught me a valuable coaching lesson," Izzo said. "I realize now that not everybody is as passionate about basketball as I am. But every year, Paul has brought a little bit more to the court. He got stronger over the summer. The only reason he gets tired in games now is that he has some anxiety inside during big games. Maybe that's a good thing, maybe it means he's getting more passion for the game."
Davis, who recently announced he will return for his senior season, faced enormous expectations when he arrived at Michigan State in 2002. The Spartans were two years removed from winning the national championship, and were coming off a disappointing loss to North Carolina State in the first round of the 2001 NCAA tournament. Davis was ranked the nation's No. 1 prospect by some recruiting services, after averaging 29.7 points and 13.8 rebounds as a senior at Rochester (Mich.) High School.
But during much of his first two college seasons, Davis was criticized for playing too soft and not being aggressive enough around the basket. He showed signs of being a productive player, scoring four points in the final minute to beat Maryland, 60-58, in the region semifinals of the 2003 NCAA tournament, but was still too inconsistent to be considered a dominant post player.
"I don't think there's any question Paul had a lot of pressure on him and a lot of it was self-imposed," Izzo said.
During this NCAA tournament, though, Davis has played relaxed and seems like he's having fun. He had 11 points and 14 rebounds in a second-round victory over Vermont, and then dominated Duke's Shelden Williams, one of the country's best post players, with 20 points and 12 rebounds in the Spartans' 78-68 win. Against Kentucky in the final of the Austin Region, Davis had 15 points and 11 rebounds and scored a key dunk during the second overtime in a 94-88 victory.
"Over the past month, Paul has been aggressive, assertive and doing a lot more things," guard Kelvin Torbert said. "I think it makes this team that much better."
Spartans Note: Senior forward Alan Anderson, the Spartans' leading scorer with 13.7 points per game, sat out Tuesday's practice with a bruised right knee. Anderson injured the knee against Kentucky, but is expected to practice Wednesday.