Before No. 8 Michigan State basketball hosts No. 2 Michigan, the Spartans must find their focus for an East Coast road game Tuesday at Rutgers.
EAST LANSING – Before Michigan State basketball can turn its attention to its biggest rival and a top-10 showdown, it must first handle another long-distance trip.
And a chance for a historic win.
The eighth-ranked Spartans take a six-game win streak on the road, facing Rutgers on Tuesday, Jan. 27 (6:30 p.m., FS1). Their 18-2 record after 20 games matches the program’s third-best start along with last season, 2018-19 and 2000-01. Izzo’s 2007-08 and 2013-14 teams both made it to 19-2 before suffering a third loss; MSU has never hit 20 wins with only two losses in school history.
But to do so, at the midpoint of the 20-game league schedule, the Spartans (8-1 Big Ten) must do to the struggling Scarlet Knights (9-11, 2-7) what they did during a West Coast trip to Washington and Oregon and in Saturday’s 91-48 home blowout of Maryland.
Particularly with a visit to Breslin Center from No. 2 Michigan ahead Friday, to start a challenging second-half slate for coach Tom Izzo’s team.
“I just want to make sure our players stay focused on one game at a time and the task at hand,” he said Monday before MSU’s practice and weather-altered travel plans to Piscataway, New Jersey. “The elephant in the room is you know your rivalry and big game is on Friday. That’s the way it is in this league – you have to take care of business.”
Fantastic four
Izzo said he is leaning on the Spartans’ four captains – seniors Carson Cooper and Jaxon Kohler, junior Coen Carr and third-year sophomore Jeremy Fears Jr. – to keep the same focus the team had with its road wins on the West Coast.
“Immediately after [beating Maryland] Sunday, I talked to our captains about the job they gotta get done,” Izzo said. “It’s an interesting week. … They’re the ones that are managing the locker room. That’s why I have those meetings with those captains. ‘Better manage the locker room when you get here tomorrow,’ I said that Saturday night.”
Fears has emerged as the engine of the win streak. The 6-foot-2 point guard is averaging 16.7 points, 8.2 assists and 1.8 rebounds, with just 1.8 turnovers, during the run. That included a career-high 17 assists with 17 points against Maryland, the first player in Big Ten history with that many assists and points in a single game and the first in Division I to do it since Kansas State's Marquese Nowell did it against MSU in the Sweet 16 of the 2023 NCAA Tournament.
Fears also is a major reason why the Spartans are ranked No. 1 in the nation in defensive efficiency per kenpom.com, with Carr and Cooper giving them a three-level wall. MSU has allowed just 58 points a game against Big Ten competition, while outscoring league foes by 17.4 points.
“I think it’s starting with me,” Fears said Saturday after MSU allowed its fewest points since giving up 41 in a win at Ohio State on Feb. 12, 2023. “I have to be the head of the snake on the defensive end.”
Kohler, who had been leading the Spartans in scoring (13.2 points), dropped behind Fears (13.4) after down games at Washington and Oregon but recovered with 11 points and eight boards against the Terps. The 6-10 forward is averaging 9.6 points and 7.7 rebounds over the past six games.
That coincided with an uptick from his frontcourt mate Cooper, who is beginning to find low-post scoring traction and is averaging 13.6 points and 6.8 rebounds during the win streak. That includes twice setting personal scoring bests, with 18 and 19 points, during the stretch.
Carr, meanwhile, continues to develop his offensive skills by hitting more midrange jumpers and making five of his last eight from 3-point range, averaging 9.3 points and 5.0 rebounds during the streak.
“I think the most exciting thing for me, and I told those four this (Sunday): I don’t think any of them have reached their ceiling,” Izzo said. “Now, will they? I don’t know. But they have room for growth. And if they really want to buckle down and say, ‘I got two months, let’s go for it,’ we’ll see. They’ve all gradually made progress.”
Back to the RAC
Tuesday marks the Spartans' first return to Piscataway since 2022. And Jersey Mike’s Arena – aka Rutgers Athletic Center, aka "The RAC" – presents one of the sneakiest challenges in the Big Ten.
Ask Purdue, which lost there as the No. 1 team in the country in back-to-back seasons, on Dec. 9, 2021, and again Jan. 2, 2023.
Izzo’s teams have lost two in a row in Piscatawayby a combined 51 points. The first, a 67-37 blowout on Jan. 28, 2021, came after a 20-day layoff between games for a coronavirus pause, and without fans in the stands. The second, on Feb. 5, 2022, was an 84-63 loss in which coach Steve Pikiell’s Scarlet Knights thrashed the Spartans in every facet that Izzo emphasizes – and thrilled the beyond-capacity crowd of nearly 8,200.
“It’s been a tough place to play since we started going there. And yet we’ve had some decent games there and we’ve had some poor games there,” Izzo said. “I think it’s more being focused on the task at hand, not letting distractions, not letting other games, not letting other things get to us.”
MSU’s losing streak against Rutgers grew to three in a row on the road with a 61-55 loss on Jan. 14, 2024 at Madison Square Garden, but the Spartans won the lone meeting with the Scarlet Knights last year in the historic New York City venue, 81-74, on Jan. 25, 2025. Izzo also beat Pikiell in the last two meetings in East Lansing in 2023 and 2024.
None of the current Spartans have played at Jersey Mike's Arena, which Izzo said he hadn’t thought about until Monday.
“My experience, my staff’s experience, we’re just gonna have to talk to them,” Izzo said. “And who knows? Maybe I’ll have a player or two from the past call some of our guys.”
MSU and Rutgers meet twice this season, with the return game at Breslin Center on March 5. The Spartans have U-M twice in the second half, along trips to Minnesota, Wisconsin, No. 12 Purdue and Indiana, along with visits from No. 10 Illinois, UCLA and Ohio State.
“I think we still have a lot of room for growth,” Izzo said, “but also our schedule keeps getting tougher and tougher. So we’ll see which one adds up.”
Rutgers update
Pikiell's team has dropped three straight and five of its last seven since Big Ten play resumed in the new year. Still, the Scarlet Knights are 8-4 at home, with league wins over Oregon (88-85) and Northwestern (77-75), with both in overtime. They are 0-4 in conference play on the road.
Guard Tariq Francis, a 6-1 NJIT transfer who has started half of Rutgers' 20 games, now comes off the bench and is averaging a team-leading 15.9 points. Sophomore 6-8 forward Dylan Grant averages 11.1 points and 4.6 rebounds, while 6-2 junior point guard Jamichael Davis posts 7.6 points and 2.6 assists.
Senior 6-10 forward Emmanuel Ogbole, one of only four Scarlet Knights 6-9 or taller, leads them with 6.9 boards. However, Pikiell's team is getting outrebounded by 4.8 a game and getting outscored by 13.7 points against Big Ten opponents.
Contact Chris Solari: [email protected]. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball sets priorities: Rutgers first, then U-M
Category: General Sports
