The battle for first place is upon us!
Raise your hand if you looked at the schedule when it came out over the summer, saw a meeting between MSU and um in late February, and thought it would be for first place in the Big Ten.
If your hand is up right now, you’re lying. But here we are, 15 games into the conference schedule (14 for um), and we have the Spartans and the animal that does not even inhabit this state going at it on a Friday night with the winner walking away as the conference leader.
Certainly, both fan bases are surprised at how their respective seasons are going. For Michigan State, entering a season not in the top 25 is an oddity, and certainly there were some bearish expectations for the ‘24-’25 season of MSU hoops. That said, this is still Tom Izzo’s program, and anyone who knows anything about college basketball knows not to be surprised if an Izzo team exceeds expectations.
63 miles away in ann arbor, the disbelief is certainly higher. After mercifully ending the juwan howard disaster, um snagged Dusty May from Florida Atlantic to try to right the ship. He seems to be doing that much faster than expected. In the Big Ten Preseason Media Poll , um was picked to finish ninth; MSU was selected fifth and even had one first-place vote.
To be fair, the 20-5 record (12-2 B1G) is impressive. And a closer look does reveal some wins that will help their tourney resume. They won a pair of conference road games against teams that were ranked at the time, Wisconsin and UCLA. And they also beat then-ranked Xavier in the non-con, though the Musketeers have certainly fallen from relevancy since then. In addition to the win at Madison, um’s other best win is their home victory over Purdue just over a week ago. The wolverines tied the season series against Purdue with a two-point win, which makes them even after they lost an equally close 27-point contest in West Lafayette a few weeks earlier.
The wolverines also have had a few losses this season that are looking worse as the season goes on. Conference foe Minnesota and SEC squads Arkansas and Oklahoma are all teams trending towards the NIT at best. Aside from their losses, it is also worth noting that um has not been winning their games by large margins. In their current six-game winning streak and in nine of their 12 conference wins, they have won by four points or less, with one of those being an overtime affair. Interestingly, the three games they won by over four points were against new Big Ten teams USC, UCLA, and Washington, which they played all in a row in the first two weeks of January. Accordingly, um’s point differential through their conference schedule thus far is a mere +3.1 per game. For comparison, MSU is tops in this category at +11.0.
Now for a closer look at the players at Dusty May’s disposal. This matchup should be a polar opposite from the one we just had against Purdue. The Boilermakers are a team dominated by their point guard and a wing, Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn. Conversely, the strength of um’s roster is found on the interior. May scored a pair of legit big men in the portal ahead of his maiden season in ann arbor. He brought Vladislav Golden with him from FAU and also grabbed Danny Wolf who had played at Yale for two seasons. At 7’1” and 7’ even, both players are appropriately listed as centers. They both start and they both play big minutes, with Goldin playing over 25 minutes per game and Wolf just under 30. They are um’s two highest scorers, averaging 15.7 and 12.9 PPG, respectively.
So while MSU can thank their suffocating perimeter defense as a big contributor for their win over Purdue, it is going to take a whole other type of defensive effort to defeat um on Friday. I know at least a few of you watched um’s last game, a three-point win at Ohio State. If I were a neutral observer, I would have called it an excellent game; it was close throughout and came down to the last second (and it was ridiculous how badly that Buckeye missed that bunny at the end which would have sent it to overtime).
In my opinion, the biggest factor in um getting the W was rebounding, and specifically offensive rebounding. For the game, um collected 19 offensive rebounds on their way to an overall dominating performance on the glass, 46-31. By comparison, OSU had 19 defensive rebounds. Or, in other words, every time um missed a shot, there was a 50% chance they were getting the ball back. When you have a pair of 7-footers, I guess that is not so surprising, but Goldin and Wolf actually only accounted for 9 of those 19 offensive boards. A total of nine wolverines pulled down an offensive rebound in this game, showing that it is a team effort. It should come as no surprise then to hear that um is third overall in the Big Ten in rebounding.
The good news is that the team that is second in the B1G on the glass is… Michigan State! This is where this game is going to be decided. Jaxon Kohler, Szymon Zapala, Xavier Booker (yes, I believe we will see him play at least ten minutes in this one, and probably closer to fifteen), and Carson Cooper are going to have to bring their A-game. Positioning and boxing out are going to be key to preventing um from getting easy second-chance points off putbacks. We shall see if rotating these four and keeping them fresh helps in this department, especially later in the game. Remember, um’s two centers both play major minutes, certainly more than any of MSU’s four primary interior players (Kohler plays the most at 20.3 MPG). So hopefully we can wear them down and really tilt the rebounding contest in our favor.
Aside from Goldin and Wolf, um’s next best player is Tre Donaldson. Tre is the floor general for um, and leads the team with 4.0 assists per game, and is also the third-leading scorer at 12.7 PPG. He is a terrific three-point shooter, converting 40.5% from deep on just under 5 attempts per game. But he only is 6’3” tall, and with MSU’s perimeter talent, I do not feel very threatened by this player. Hopefully, I am not wrong about this.
Sure this game is in ann arbor, but, as I alluded to above, crisler arena does not seem to be providing a massive boost to that team as the majority of their games, especially over the past month, have been one- or two-possession games. It also feels like MSU is rounding back into form after that stretch of games that was a 2nd-half comeback away from being a four-game losing streak. The second half of the Illinois game and the entire Purdue game were arguably the best performances we have seen from this team all season. And yet, watching those games, there is a feeling that it was not their ceiling.
My only big concern is the extra rest that um will have leading up to this game. MSU played against a solid Purdue team just 72 hours before Friday’s game will tip off. On the other hand, um is coming into it with five whole days of rest after their Ohio State game. I could see MSU having some fatigue, though that should not be enough to tilt the outcome in um’s direction.
I believe the more talented team is MSU. I believe the defensive pressure that MSU creates will lead to many bad looking shots by um. And then I believe that our big men will be up to the challenge of keeping Goldin and Wolf from getting all the rebounds. Offensively, we are accustomed to a different high scorer in each game; in this one, I am going with the senior captain, Jaden Akins, to lead the way. I’ll bet on him finishing with 24 points. This won’t be a blowout, but I am predicting that we walk away with a road win, a solid bullet point for our tourney resume, and with the Big Ten conference lead. Final score: MSU wins 74-70.
And let’s take a look at what the rest of the TOC staff is saying.
Mike: I think our bigs can contain theirs and our guards seem to be really clamping down on D. Since getting crushed by Purdue on January 24, Michigan has won 5 in a row – each game by either 2, 3, or 4 points. They are also 12-0 at home. Trends have to break at some point. 72-65 Spartans.
Steve: This game has weird energy. MSU has had two nice wins in a row. Fears has struggled as of late and seems like Holloman should get more action. I feel like MSU will have a lot of whistles blown against them and foul trouble will be too much to overcome. Spartans will fall 77-68.
Brian is still thinking about it.
Comment with your predictions. We are going on the road and coming home with first place, right?
GO GREEN! GO WHITE!