MSU head men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo, junior guard Keith Appling and freshman forward Matt Costello look ahead to this weekend’s Big Ten Tournament.
With the postseason approaching, most college basketball coaches are burying their heads in scouting reports and scouring hours of game film, looking for any detail to give them an edge on the competition.
But what exactly is the blueprint to defeat the No. 8 MSU men’s basketball team?
After a season of strong but, at times, inconsistent play, six teams have gotten the best of the Spartans (24-7 overall, 13-5 Big Ten) this year, including two losses at the hands of No. 3 Indiana.
Still, junior guard Keith Appling said no such blueprint exists.
“It’s impossible (to scheme for MSU),” Appling said. “I mean, it’s too tough. We would have too much firepower and too many guys who can do different things on any given night.”
Certainly it’s not impossible to defeat the Spartans, as it happened at various points this year. But multiple times this season, head coach Tom Izzo said the team is without a letdown loss on its schedule — a note he takes great pride in.
Perhaps the worst loss of the year came in a 13-point defeat in the Big Ten opener against then-No. 9 Minnesota.
MSU averaged a five-point margin in its other six losses and has several marquee victories.
Staring at a familiar one-and-done format of the postseason tournament season, Izzo said the fact the Spartans have multiple scoring options makes them a dangerous team to play against in March.
“Sometimes it’s easy if you know they have two great players that are going to score a lot of their points, you can game plan to that,” Izzo said. “One day, (senior center Derrick) Nix is getting 25 (points), one day he’s getting five. There’s some inconsistency to that but it’s hard the other way to figure that out.”
The upcoming Big Ten Tournament will be the first opportunity for a postseason run for many — including sophomoreguard/forward Branden Dawson, who missed his first postseason because of a tear to his left anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).
And for freshman forward Matt Costello, it’ll be the first opportunity to introduce himself to a national audience.
Costello echoed Appling’s remarks about the team, saying MSU can be lethal.
“We have nights when Keith goes 2-for-15, we have nights where he goes 11-for-15 and Gary is pretty consistent but sometimes, he doesn’t hit as much,” Costello said. “You just have to lock up and be the best you can and I don’t even know where to start with that.”
The Spartans enter the tournament set to play No. 6-seeded Iowa or No. 11-seeded Northwestern on Friday at the United Center in Chicago.
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