Off to a 12-1 start, defending Big Ten champ Michigan State basketball resumes league play Friday at red-hot Nebraska seeking to keep hunger of 2025.
EAST LANSING — The “easy” part of Tom Izzo’s schedules are never easy. In a masochistic way, the coach loves to challenge himself and Michigan State basketball every year, then laments the slate he created before Big Ten play begins in earnest.
Of course, when that nonconference schedule includes three marquee wins and a 12-1 record, it’s a lot harder for Izzo to gripe through his smile.
“I hate to admit it, but every coach puts down probably its schedule and he looks at the best-case scenario and the worst-case scenario,” Izzo said after beating Cornell, 114-97, on Monday, Dec. 29. “My best-case scenario probably would've been 11-2. My worst-case scenario would've probably been 9-4, 10-3. I'm really excited on where we are, and I think we've played good enough against some good teams. …
“I love my guys. I don't love my team yet. I told you what we were – I think we're a good team. I'm trying to be a great team, and then you move in to the next level, and that's kind of where we are. We're probably a pretty damn good team right now.”
The Big Ten run – offering the chance to repeat as champions and deliver Izzo a record-setting 12th regular-season league title – resumes Friday night (9 p.m., Peacock) when No. 9 MSU heads to red-hot No. 13 Nebraska (13-0).
“This preseason, we’ve had a lot of tough games, we’ve played against a lot of good teams,” senior captain Jaxon Kohler said Monday. “In some of those games, we didn’t play as well as we should have, to get that out of the way. We’d either have a great first half or we had a great second half, and the other was not as good. And that’s something we’re still trying to get through our heads, to have a great full game.
“But we’ve played some really good teams. And I feel like some of those wins and losses have brought us so much closer together as a group. And that, honestly, in the big picture is one of the most important things you can have.”
The Spartans opened Big Ten play with two markedly different December games. On Dec. 2 at Breslin Center, they put together a strong 71-52 starting statement against an Iowa team that is now 11-2 and up to No. 23 in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll. Then on the road Dec. 13 against pedestrian Penn State, MSU struggled before recovering for a 76-72 victory.
Those two conference games came in the midst of a nonconference schedule that was highlighted by victories over No. 18 Arkansas at home, over Kentucky in the Champions Classic in New York and over No. 12 North Carolina in Fort Myers, Florida. With their lone loss a four-point home loss to No. 5 Duke, the Spartans are off to their best end-of-calendar year record since a 15-1 start to the 2017-18 season. And this year’s team has done so by playing opponents with varying styles of play and an intentional frequency of games on quick turnarounds, a process employed by Izzo and scheduling guru Kevin Pauga to simulate what MSU might experience in the NCAA tournament.
“This prepares you for March,” third-year point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. said after the Spartans’ frenetic win over Cornell. “You never know – you see all types of teams, different teams. This is a good chance to see it now compared to March, when it’s one-and-done and you don’t get to play another game (with a loss).”
MSU was 11-2 at this point last season en route to an 18-2 mark and 9-0 start to Big Ten play. The Spartans eventually won Izzo's record-tying 11th league title by three games, at 17-3 in league play, and finished 30-7, making it to his 11th Elite Eight in 30 seasons.
“(People) were ranking us in the middle to the bottom (of the Big Ten) or whatever. So, yeah, keep doing that. And then we’d go out there and we just proved people wrong, and then we’d just keep going and keep going,” Kohler said. “We had that last year, and that took us to a bunch of wins against really good teams. And this year, we just had to double down on that mindset in the preseason. We had to tell all the (new) guys, ‘This is the mindset we had, this is how we do things, this is what led us to getting one game away from the Final Four.’
“We just had to double down on that mindset. We found what works for us.”
After the quick trip to Nebraska, MSU gets its next three games at home, with a Monday visit from USC (8:30 p.m., FS1) followed by Northwestern on Jan. 8 and Indiana on Jan. 13. Three of the Spartans' final four January games are on the road, however, with a grueling stretch featuring a two-game West Coast trip to Washington (Jan. 17) and Oregon (Jan. 20) followed by an East Coast trek to Rutgers (Jan. 27). Sandwiched between those is a Jan. 24 visit to Breslin by Maryland.
The core of Izzo’s team is battle-tested from both last season and the start to this year. Heading to an always-difficult environment at Nebraska against a surging Cornhuskers team off to its best start in nearly 100 years – their first unbeaten nonconference schedule since 1928-29 – won’t make the new year any easier.
And it has Izzo sharpening their mental toughness to prepare for the grind of the next three months.
“I think everybody makes such a big deal about mentally. I mean, mentally, just go play,” he said. “Let's go play, and I'm really looking forward to getting a chance to go down there and play. And it's not like we haven't had some tests, because we have. And we answered the bell.
“We'll see if we answer it this week. This isn't a midterm. This is a final exam, so we'll see how we do in the final exam.”
Contact Chris Solari: [email protected]. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball working to carry 2025 mindset into new year
Category: General Sports
