Izzo helped Montgomery land Detroit Mercy job
History began when coach was MSU recruit in 1980s
Mark Montgomery took the podium inside Calihan Hall, thinking back to his high school days at Southgate Aquinas.
One Catholic League playoff game at the then-University of Detroit arena stood out. As did one person, who sat in the bleachers on a winter night in the late 1980s and stood on the court watching proudly Wednesday morning.
Tom Izzo. Back then, he was recruiting Montgomery to play for Michigan State basketball.
The way Montgomery recalls it, tipoff didn’t come until after 8 p.m. The Raiders were running roughshod over U-D Jesuit throughout the first half. All of the point guard’s shots were dropping, and Aquinas built a lead of more than a dozen points.
Legendary MSU coach Jud Heathcote turned to Izzo, then his assistant, at halftime to start warming the car.
“Jud said, ‘Tom, let’s go, I’ve seen enough. Let’s go get him,’” Montgomery said. “And I’m glad they left. Because in the second half, I think we might have scored 10 points. I couldn’t make a basket, and U of D beat us. But Jud was already down on 96. And Coach Izzo had already put in the work anyway recruiting me.”
But Wednesday morning, it was a different type of sales job Izzo orchestrated on Montgomery’s behalf, one that pushed the 54-yearold out of his nest for the second time and landed Montgomery the head coaching position at Detroit Mercy.
“It’s perfect timing for myself,” Montgomery said. “I’m from this area. I just want the opportunity to be back in that head seat and help mentor and help coach and give student athletes an opportunity, a chance. This is a great time. And I’m just looking forward to the challenge.”
And admittedly, Montgomery realizes the immense challenge ahead of him to resurrect the Titans, who went a Division I-worst 1-31 this season and on March 7 fired Mike Davis after the former Indiana coach went 60-119 in
six seasons.
“It’s time to turn that next page of Titans basketball,” UDM athletic director Robert Vowels said Wednesday.
Enter Montgomery, an Inkster native who spent 10 years as Northern Illinois’ head coach until he was fired midseason in early 2021. Montgomery went 124–170 overall and 63–98 in Mid-American Conference play during that time, which included a MAC West Division title in 2020 and a 21-win season in 2015-16. After starting a combined 10-51 over his first two seasons, Huskies went 113-112 in the next seven years before a 1-7 start cost him his job.
Montgomery initially joined Davis’ staff in the late spring of 2021 for three months before Izzo poached him away for a second coaching stint at MSU, initially as a recruiting coordinator but quickly moving to an on-court position replacing his former MSU teammate Dwayne Stephens and Dane Fife as an assistant.
“There’s no reason this place can’t get back to the days of (Dick Vitale) and everything,” Izzo said Wednesday. “It’s not that against Mike or anybody else. It just should be. Where it’s located, and I think this new president wants
to do some things. That’s exciting for me, and it’s exciting for (Montgomery).”
Under Vitale between 1976-79, the Titans won 22 or more games in three straight seasons and made the NCAA tournament twice. Since making back-to-back NCAA appearances in 1998 and 1999, UDM has earned just one March Madness invitation in 2012. It culminated with a disastrous 2023-24 campaign in which the Titans lost their first 26 games before defeating IUPUI on Feb. 14, then dropped their final five games.
“I gotta get a feel of who’s going to come back. You have some guys in the portal, you have some guys that want to stay,” Montgomery said. “I’m just excited. I told the guys that you gotta be able to work. I’m an energy-effort guy, but you got to be ready to work. You got to be ready to take care of your business off to court. And you gotta wanna be able to play fast, because we’re gonna get up and down.”
Montgomery played at MSU from 1988-92, earning third-team All-Big Ten as a senior and helping the Spartans make three NCAA appearances. Afer playing overseas professionally in Germany, Lithuania and Sweden,
Montgomery returned and served as assistant coach at Central Michigan from 1997-2001. That’s when he first joined Izzo’s staff at MSU as an assistant from 2001-2011, which included three Final Four appearances in that span.
Along with his wife, Alexandra, three kids, his parents and brother and sister, Montgomery had number of MSU’s support staff make the trip from East Lansing with Izzo to support him Wednesday. The Hall of Fame coach talked with Vowels and second-year university president Donald Taylor to help Montgomery first make the cut of the nine semifinalists and survive the whittling to four finalists before getting the job April 3.
“But it became very clear after interviewing the finalists that Monty was our guy,” Taylor said. “And he checked all the boxes by being local, knowing the importance and significance of basketball in Calihan Hall, at University of Detroit and University of Detroit Mercy, and what it’s meant to the community growing up. He has a vision for the program. And we all know we have a lot of work to do.”
Taylor said there is “complete alignment” between himself, Montgomery, Vowels and the UDM Board of Trustees on working toward facilities improvements to Calihan Hall and are “committed to do that and to field a competitive program.”
One other thing that could happen: the Titans and Spartans rekindling their long-lost rivalry. Izzo lost three times in his first three seasons to UDM, including a triple-OT defeat at Cobo Hall in 1996. The two schools have only played twice since 1997, both MSU home victories in 2001 and in 2020.
That’s in the future. For now, Montgomery knows the magnitude ahead of the rebuilding process and how there is nowhere to go but up for the Titans.
“It’s gonna take some time,” he said. “But with the transport portal, with junior college basketball, you got some good high school kids coming in, I have had no problems since I’ve been named the head coach here.
“You wouldn’t believe how many people have reached out — new people, old relationships. We’re gonna have some horses in here, competing and fighting. And let’s just see what happens.”