Mikey D

As excited as Adam gets for college football, I get just as excited for college basketball and Michigan State basketball. And with Midnight Madness having come and gone, it's time to get a new year started. This post is dedicated to everything that is Michigan State basketball, and serves as everything you should need to get ready for the upcoming season. Go Green!

Before we get started with the upcoming season, let's say thank you to Drew Neitzel. You were the man.



Losing Drew Neitzel is a big blow, but if we overcome it this year, we should be a damn good team. Andy Katz of ESPN has MSU ranked as the 4th best team right now in the nation, which, in my opinion, is rather high, but speaks volumes about the group of freshmen Izzo has brought on board and the talent we still have on our roster currently.

What does our roster look like? From seniors to freshman, take a look:
MSU 2008-2009 Roster
Travis Walton-G (senior)
Idong Ibok-C (senior)
Goran Suton-C (senior)
Marquise Gray-F (senior)
Raymar Morgan-F (junior)
Isaiah Dahlman-G (junior)
Joe Crandell-F (junior)
Chris Allen-G (sophomore)
Tom Herzog-C (sophomore)
Mike Kebler-G (sophomore)
Kailin Lucas-G (sophomore)
Durrell Summers-G (sophomore)
Austin Thornton-F (freshman)
Delvon Roe-F (freshman)
Korie Lucious-G (freshman)
Draymond Green-F (freshman)

Obviously some of those guys will never see the court, but we're looking at a starting roster of:
G-Travis Walton
G-Kailin Lucas
F-???
F-Raymar Morgan
C-Goran Suton

The fifth spot feels wide open. Will Izzo go big and put in the senior Gray? Will he go small and go with Allen or Summers? Maybe we go with the freshman phenom Delmon Roe? My prediction is he'll go with Gray to start the year, but it'll be Roe to finish it.

Schedule
This looks like a down year for the Big Ten, which will be good for us. Indiana, Illinois, Ohio State, and Michigan are rebuilding, and Wisconsin lost a lot off of last year's team. Purdue seems like it will give MSU the biggest threat as they are bringing back basically their entire squad from last year.

Big Ten Schedule
@Minnesota
@Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Illinois
Northwestern
@Ohio State
@Iowa
Penn State
Minnesota
Indiana
@Michigan
@Purdue
Wisconsin
Iowa
@Illinois
@Indiana
Purdue

The biggest games to me right now are those Purdue match-ups, and it seems fitting we end with them at home. Somebody is going to have to explain to me why we only play Wisconsin and Michigan once. That's absolutely ridiculous. MSU and Wisconsin have been the two premier teams this past decade and they should be playing more than once against one another. And Michigan is our in-state rival! And we only played them once last year! What the hell?

On the plus side, this schedule is ridiculously favorable for us right now. Of course there will be some surprise team that pops up and challenges for the top spot in the Big Ten, so we'll wait and see who that is.

Outside of the Big Ten, we are going to get challenged. Big time.

We start with the "Old Spice" Classic, which is one of those mini-tournaments. In that one we get to play Maryland in the opening round, then possibly Gonzaga in the semifinals (a top-10 team), and Georgetown or Tennessee likely in the finals. Wow.

But that's not all. We also have non-conference match-ups at home against North Carolina and Kansas, as well as on the road with Texas. Holy shit. At least we should be battle tested before the big dance.

The Freshmen
Roe, Green, and Lucious. Delvon Roe is the prize. A five-star recruit stolen out of the state of Ohio. He just had off season surgery, but it is said he's good to go. If he can make an immediate impact...our front-line might be one of the most versatile in the country with Morgan, Suton, Roe, Gray, and Ibok. We can rebound, score, shot block- we've got players that can match-up with any style of play.

Lucious is four-star recruit stolen from Wisconsin (how lovely to take kids out of the backyards of Ohio State and Wisconsin!) who is downright scorer. And he's miniature like Kailin Lucas. He's said to be one of those guys who'll fit right in. I'm thinking he's going to have a Lucas-like impact off the bench. That spark that comes in and gets your team on a run.

Green I'm not expecting much from. He's a big boy, but apparently he's still "green" when it comes to the game of basketball. There's a lot of talent on this MSU squad, so maybe he can take a year and truly develop.

Prediction
National Championship. The stars are aligned for us this year. The Final Four is in Detroit, the Big Ten is winnable, we'll be battle-tested with a tough non-conference schedule, and we are overloaded with talent. It's going to be up to Izzo to get it all out of them, but in Izzo I trust.

Suton and Lucas really emerged last year, and I like what Allen and Summers brought and I expect them to contribute more. Raymar had a lot of pressure on him last year to be the 2nd option to Neitzel, and I feel that's off him a bit this year- which is perfect for the kind of player he is. We lost Neitzel, but we found ourselves with three fantastic freshmen that could possibly contribute immediately. And don't underestimate Dahlman coming off the bench. He was hurt for the majority of last year, so you never know what kind of game he could bring to the table.

I just see a really balanced team this year that is going to win a lot of different ways, but it will be known for it's toughness and physicality.

2008-2009 Michigan State Spartans:
Record: 25-5 (#2 seed in the NCAA Tournament)
---Losses: North Carolina, Texas, @Iowa, @Illinois, @Purdue
Big 10 Record: 15-3 (1st Place)
Big 10 Tournament Champs
National Champions

And for the road...

~Mikey D