And the first thing on Izzo's mind -- defense.

"I told you on media day that the one thing with this team, is they've got a lot of shooters," Izzo said at the post game press conference Monday night. "And what are shooters notorious for? Not guarding anybody, and they lived up to it tonight and we just did not guard."

That was exact the case for the Spartans. At one point in the second half, MSU had built a 58-35 lead and looked like they were taking complete control of the game. 

However, an onslaught of five 3-point shots from the Bulldogs closed the MSU lead to 62-50. While Ferris State did eventually cool down and finished the game 10-of-28 from downtown, defense and not taking their foot off the gas are among the top things the Spartans feel could be improved upon if they hope to accomplish this season's goal of a national championship.

"We need to work on a lot of things," said senior guard Denzel Valentine, who finished with 15 points, 7 assists and 7 rebounds on the night. "But the biggest thing right now is just our mindset. I think we have all the physical abilities to do what we need to do but we just need to have a better mindset coming into these games of trying to impose our will."

Nevertheless, Izzo, who is still tampering with potential lineups and combinations for this season, is excited to get back to work.

"It will be fun couple days of practice," Izzo said. "We'll see if we can get a little better here ... It wasn't awful. I'm just expecting more out of this team. I think we have enough veterans and we have senior leadership, they should expect a little bit more. We have a long season ... but I am trying to set up a way of playing now that we get little hungrier and figure out when we get a lead, we step on somebody instead of letting them off the hook."

The Spartans kick off their regular season against Florida Atlantic Friday, Nov. 13 at Breslin Center. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. After that, they'll head to Chicago to take on No. 4 Kansas in the Champions Classic on Nov. 17 -- a challenge this team is certainly up for, but also one they know they'll have to be in top form for.

"We've got a lot of work to do to get better," sophomore point guard and captain Lourawls "Tum Tum" Nairn Jr. said. "We got to play better teams, real quick, real soon. We got to start homing in on the little details -- homing in on defense and just playing a complete 40 minutes because it's going to get real, real fast. But I think we're going to do it. I think we're going to do it if we keep working hard each and every day and guys keep listening to coach, I think it's going to be great."