EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Tom Izzo blew the whistle, stopped Saturday's scrimmage and reminded Michigan State freshman Maurice Ager that his first two steps on the fast break had to be a sprint, not a Sunday jog.

Ager took the correction in stride, but he wasn't finished receiving his impromptu tutorial. Senior forward Adam Ballinger took out his mouthpiece to add his two cents.

"First two steps, they're the most important, the first two steps," Ballinger reiterated to Ager, almost as if he was scripted to enforce what Izzo had just explained.

Again, Ager didn't flinch -- even if he was being told something twice, once by his head coach and then again by a teammate. No, make that an older teammate

	Four years of Tom Izzo's system has qualified redshirt senior Adam Ballinger to be a leader.

Last season, Izzo didn't have such a player to echo his teachings. It's something called a leader. And the Spartans never saw one emerge, at least no one along the lines of Ballinger, or the other players this season who've taken charge.

No offense to departed sophomore point guard Marcus Taylor, who led the Spartans in scoring and then split on Michigan State for a chance at the NBA (A decision that seems to look like a longer shot each day as he struggles to make the Minnesota Timberwolves out of the second round). But Taylor didn't have it in him.

Senior forwards Ballinger and Aloysius Anagonye do, as does the most important position on the court for Izzo -- the point guard. Sophomore Chris Hill, who is making the adjustment from swing guard to point, is taking over for Taylor in more ways than one. He's not only replacing him at the point, at least one or two years before he thought, but is also immediately becoming the team's public spokesperson and one of its three leaders.

During film work, or should we say state-of-the-art video work (more on that later) prior to Saturday's scrimmage, Hill was the only player to speak up during the session to ensure he's doing the right thing coming off a screen. Izzo wanted him to explode past a screen, turn tighter around the corner toward the basket for either a drive to the hole or a pull-up jumper, instead of coming too wide where a defender might have enough time to recover. Instead of quietly wondering if he was following what Izzo was preaching, or worse, pretending he understood Izzo's orders, Hill asked a question.

Izzo's answer not only made him a better player, but added knowledge to a budding leader on and off the court.

No, the communication this team is showing a week into practice isn't as good as the 2000 Mateen Cleaves-Morris Peterson "Flintstones" championship run. But it's on its way back toward that level after a one-year hiatus that saw the Spartans barely make the NCAA Tournament last season and bow out in the first round of the tourney to North Carolina State. The Spartans went to three straight Final Fours from 1999-2001 and they have a legitimate shot to get back to one again in 2003 if they continue to evolve.

And it begins with the intangibles displayed in these early practices by Ballinger, Anagonye and Hill.

"Ballinger and Anagonye have done a good job, but I still think the guards have to do it more than the inside guys," Izzo said. "That's what we have now. Last year, no one knew (how to be leaders)."

Last year's drop off (which a program on the level of Michigan State calls a 19-11 season and trip to the NCAA tourney) and lack of leadership, can be traced to the significant alternations to Izzo's blueprint for success following his third straight Final Four in 2001. The 2000-01 team lost seven players, five seniors and two underclassmen -- first-round picks Jason Richardson and Zach Randolph. While Randolph was a major contributor on the court, Izzo never got the chance to find out if his teenage big man could have been a leader as Randolph left after his freshman year. But Richardson was on the cusp of becoming one of those special players. He was outspoken as a sophomore, put in the extra time on his game and wanted to be Izzo's hand-picked leader.

Izzo said former Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins came up to him at the Final Four last April and credited him for surviving the NBA defection by still getting to the tournament. Underclassmen leaving for The League is a sore subject with Cremins, considering he wasn't able to outlast the hit of losing Stephon Marbury after just one season. But Izzo wasn't so sure that getting to the first round of the NCAAs last season meant that Michigan State had survived the loss of Richardson.

"We didn't just lose a player, we lost a leader in the locker room, the hotels and the airplanes," Izzo said. "Taylor was a good player, but he didn't bring the leadership. He was no Richardson, who would have been a great leader."

	Courtside With Katz
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	Saturday, Nov. 2 The defending champs must shuffle the lineup in defense of the title.
	Sunday, Nov. 10 Under the NCAA's new exhibition rules, John Thompson (III) coaches against Georgetown.

"Richardson had the whole package," associate head coach Brian Gregory said.

"He was an unselfish kid who with one more year would have been a special player," Izzo said of Richardson, a first-team All-Big Ten selection after averaging 14.7 points in 2000-01. "If you don't have guards who can lead then I'm not sure how good you can be. Cleaves was a get-you-by-the-throat guy, whereas Eric Snow was someone who would talk you through it and had the respect of the players."

And that's where Hill fits into this year's equation that Izzo hopes gets the Spartans back to the top -- to not only the Big Ten but competing with the rest of the country for the title awarded in New Orleans next April.

Hill spent the summer working on his point guard skills, notably leading the Big Ten all-stars on a tour in Europe. Hill can make shots, mostly from the corner and the top of the circle, but he can also be that calming influence to restart the Spartans' offense.

When the Spartans weren't getting good spacing during their scrimmage, and there wasn't an open shot, Hill got the ball at the top of the circle, settled everyone and got the offense going one more time for a shot in the corner for Ager. And the ball movement, generated by Hill, also got Anagonye a mid-range baseline jumper -- an example that the senior big man's game has developed to where he can be less of an offensive limitation (7.7 ppg, 6.3 rpg in 2001-02) and more of a plus when he's on the floor.

"I played the point exclusively this summer in open gyms and in workouts, and the experience in Europe really helped me to play it in a structured system," Hill said. "The more game experience I'm getting the more comfortable I'll be.

"The difference this year is we've got competition at every position. The three freshmen (Hill, Alan Anderson and Kelvin Torbert) had to play last year even when we weren't playing well. But this year we've got a guy who can step up and pick up the intensity in practice. We've already got bigger guys inside banging, too."

Practice Friday and Saturday was nonstop movement. Granted there wasn't any scouting to be done of an opponent to stall practice, but the action was intense from the outset. Players were chatting, encouraging each other and getting on one another if they weren't in the right position. Izzo, Gregory, assistants Mike Garland and Mark Montgomery were just as vocal. They know, with the right prodding, this team has a chance to win the Big Ten and beyond.

The Spartans are going to board and defend (what's new?) and they look like they'll be able to score (Michigan State ranked seventh in conference scoring last season at 69 points a game). The Spartans have eight players who can make perimeter shots from 19 feet and in with guards Hill, Anderson, Ager and Torbert (who was hurt this weekend with a bum ankle), and forwards Paul Davis, Erazem Lorbek, Ballinger, Anagonye and whenever he's ready to play in real games -- Adam Wolfe. Wolfe, recovering from a severe hamstring injury, played spirited ball in Saturday's scrimmage but his status for games is still undetermined.

Anderson is in the best shape of his life and gets the system now, meaning he's making shots within it but not trying to do too much. Ager has the tools to be a combo guard, handling the ball when needed, but also making the mid-range shot that will be open to him within the offense. Torbert bought into being a team guy and Hill said he's making plays above the rim like he did in high school. Davis and Lorbek are trying to understand how physical the game is at Michigan State and at this level, but have the long-range game to stretch the defense.

Ballinger, Anagonye, freshman Delco Rowley and guards Torbert, Ager and Anderson have post-up potential. Ballinger, Anagonye and Rowley can toss forwards around to get into the lane and finish. Junior college transfer Rashi Johnson, once he learns the system and gets rid of some of his JC junk, is a capable backup point to Hill.

"We didn't have the poise the first time we were in the NCAA Tournament and we do now," Anderson said.

"Every practice we're jelling better and better and come January I think we'll be the No. 1 team, or competing with the No. 1 team," Davis said. "Everyone wants to get this program back to the elite level."

If facilities mean anything, the Spartans are already there for the foreseeable future.

The Spartans new $8 million practice facility has to be one of the best in the country, up with Florida, Oklahoma and Illinois, if not a notch above. In addition to the Title IX friendly dual practice courts, the men's team has $500,000 worth of video equipment; seven satellites; seven different viewing stations for video; a 400-video jukebox of games from 1977-2002 for former players like Cleaves to watch their career; a $40,000 smart board to allow Izzo and company to telestrate in the IMAX-like theatre; portable DVD players so everyone can watch tape of practice or games; and every practice is fed right into the network so the coaches can go back to their luxurious offices to watch practice immediately following on their flat-screen laptops or PCs. Izzo got his start as a video coordinator for Jud Heathcote and wasn't going to go cheap in this area.

"There are still four or five programs that have something over the rest of us because they can recruit a player just like that," Izzo said. "We can't do it as quickly. But it could be changing because we got a commitment from a junior in Flint (Marquise Gray) who said he grew up watching Cleaves and Peterson. So we're getting kids from that era that were 7 to 15 watching us during that five years of success. Maybe that's what it takes to get over the hump."

Judging from the facilities, the resumption of leaders on this squad, and the consistency of Izzo ... Michigan State has already cleared several hurdles.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.