After the slippery floor antics in Virginia on Wednesday night, the MSU men’s basketball team looks forward to the stability of being at home in the Spartan Coca-Cola Classic.
MSU (2-2) tips off at 6 p.m. against Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne in the first round of play before Lamar and Maine face off in the nightcap.
Playing at home is a great way to regroup after playing three ranked opponents and before playing at No. 6 Florida on Dec. 5, sophomore point guard Marcus Taylor said.
“We’ve played some tough games,” Taylor said. “Even tough these teams aren’t as high caliber, we have to stay focused. To be back home, to play two home games before we go down to Florida is a big confidence booster.
“We have to use this weekend as a learning experience to get ready for Florida.”
It’s also important to extend their 46-game home-winning streak, sophomore forward Adam Wolfe said.
“These two games are big games for us because they are at home and we still have the streak going for us,” Wolfe said.
“This is an opportunity for two wins we really need.”
Tonight’s winner will advance to Saturday’s Classic championship game at 8:20 p.m with the losers competing in a consolation game at 6 p.m.
But first MSU will have to guard against a letdown, head coach Tom Izzo said.
“If you look at Dick Vitale’s list of how upsets happen, three-point shooting is up there and Indiana Purdue is shooting 41 or 42 percent,” Izzo said.
Even though MSU has dropped its last two completed games, Wolfe said the younger players are starting to get a hang of college basketball.
“I think we’re learning,” Wolfe said.
“Even if we had to learn on ice, at least we learned. I think the freshmen are learning to play hard.”
Postponed?
Izzo said Wednesday night’s game was properly called off.
“The reality is if you look back on it was more dangerous than I thought for both teams,” Izzo said. “The officials did the right thing.”
The game probably won’t be replayed because it will be hard to schedule around MSU’s final’s week schedule and figure out if the game should be restarted, Izzo said.
“There’s a million different reasons,” Izzo said.
“But the biggest one is if you look at our schedule we have nothing but games. I’d say it doesn’t look like it (will be replayed), but it’s semi out of my hands.”
