Michigan State basketball focused on self-improvement with visit from rival U-M up next
EAST LANSING — Tom Izzo pointed to the recent past, when Michigan State basketball playing Michigan meant high stakes for both teams in the Big Ten race.
This year? Not so much.
However, that does not discount the importance of Tuesday night’s first meeting between the two rivals at the halfway point of the conference season.
“We've both been involved in championship runs at this time of year or later in the last 10 years it seems like. And right now, we're both struggling a little bit. ... But I still think the rivalry is important,” Izzo said Monday during his weekly news conference. “I think everything gets diminished some as you're seeing all these new additions to conferences and different things that are going on. But as long as I'm alive, the rivalry will always be the rivalry.”
Izzo gets his second chance to become the 38th coach in Division I history to win 700 career games when the Spartans (12-8, 4-5 Big Ten) host the last-place Wolverines (7-13, 2-7) at 9 p.m. Tuesday at Breslin Center.
The game will not be televised but will be streamed only on the Peacock app.
Juwan Howard and U-M are off to the program’s worst 20-game start since John Beilein’s debut season in 2007-08 (5-15). The Wolverines have lost eight of their last nine entering Tuesday, including an 88-78 home loss to Iowa on Saturday. They have dropped their past three games all by double figures and by an average of 19 points, thanks to a 32-point blowout at No. 2 Purdue on Jan. 23.
Izzo’s team, meanwhile, has been a yo-yo since beginning the season ranked in the top five of both polls. MSU is coming off an 81-66 road loss Friday at No. 6 Wisconsin but has won eight of its last 11 following a 4-5 start. The Spartans are in a four-way tie for seventh in the league standings and among six teams with five conference losses who are fighting to earn one of the four double-byes in the Big Ten tournament.
“We're always preaching on things that we need to get better at,” said senior forward Malik Hall, who has averaged 14 points and 5.8 rebounds while shooting 53.8% over his last eight games. “I think our team does a great job of taking those things from the film room and trying to apply them to the next game. So I think as long as we keep doing things like that every day and we focus on the day to day and not not think too far ahead in advance, I think we'll be good.”
The home teams have won the past eight meetings since 2019-20. MSU won at Breslin last year, 59-53, while U-M won the rematch in Ann Arbor, 84-72.
But records oftentimes are meaningless, as emotions are high on both sides when the Spartans and Wolverines meet.
“When I grew up, I never had like a real rivalry, because there's always so many teams back home,” said senior Tyson Walker, in his third year at MSU. “So now, just embracing it, it means a lot. There's a lot more attention put on to the game. The real fans, everyone really want you to win. It means a lot to not just school but to people who went here before.”
Coming off the loss at Wisconsin, which swept the Spartans in the regular season for the first time in 20 years, Izzo is looking for more consistency from his team. Particularly, he is dialed in on improving the team’s tenacity going after loose balls and rebounds, which he felt proved costly against the Badgers.
MSU enters ranked 12th out of 14 in Big Ten play at 31.0 rebounds per game, a minus-2.9 on the glass with the first nine opponents averaging 33.9 boards against them. The Spartans also are 12th in offensive rebounds (8.3) and defensive boards (22.7) in conference games.
Izzo put the onus on his guards to deliver a lot more this week in those areas.
“Especially speaking for me, getting a rebound makes the break a lot easier for everybody,” senior point guard A.J. Hoggard said Monday. “So we kinda got to figure out a way to go help out and and be more effective on that side of the ball, getting rebounds, because it's definitely gonna help us and our break. Because once we get the rebound, I don't have to wait on the ball.”
With the Wolverines expected to again play without point guard Dug McDaniel, the team’s leading scorer at 17.2 points who has been suspended for the team’s last two road games, Izzo said the defensive focus will be on slowing down forward Olivier Nkamoua. The 6-foot-9, 235-pound Tennessee transfer averages 16.3 points and a team-high 7.1 rebounds but posts 14.8 points and 6.6 boards against Big Ten opponents.
Izzo pointed to having struggles against Nkamoua during a secret scrimmage at Tennessee before last season as a cause for concern.
“We couldn't guard him at Tennessee when we played him two years ago,” Izzo said. “He had 20 in that game — it was an exhibition game, but it was a real game. He's very good player.”
Terrance Williams II, a 6-7 senior forward, averages 12.7 points and 4.3 rebounds, while 6-1 sophmore forward Tarris Reed Jr. posts 8.6 points and 6.5 boards a game. Jaelin Llewellyn, a 6-2 senior, has started the two road games McDaniel missed.
Izzo also said defending the 3-point arc will be a priority against a Michigan team that ranks 37th nationally and third overall in the league at 37.2% while making 8.8 a game from behind the arc.
“It'll be about them. But it's going to be about us, too, and how we play,” Izzo said of preparing for U-M. “I think defensively, we've got to ratchet it up on another notch. And I think rebounding, we got to ratchet it up two notches.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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Next up: State of rivalry
Matchup: Michigan (7-13, 2-7 Big Ten) at Michigan State (12-8, 4-5).
Tipoff: 9 p.m. Tuesday; Breslin Center, East Lansing.
TV/radio: Peacock (online-only); WJR-AM (760), WWJ-AM (950).
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball focused on self-improvement with U-M up next
