Though this year’s incoming men’s basketball recruits have a difficult road ahead, the sophomore class has made the path a little smoother.
Last year’s trio of Chris Hill, Alan Anderson and Kelvin Torbert exploded in their first full-length game this season, scoring 17, 11 and 10 points respectively to lead the Green team to a 78-52 win in the Green-White scrimmage Saturday at Breslin Center.
“I really thought we got some good things out of it,” head coach Tom Izzo said. “We had some guys that played really well - Alan Anderson and I thought Kelvin Torbert played pretty well, considering he’s been out with an ankle injury for five of the last eight days.”
Izzo isn’t the only one that’s pleased, Big Ten media members and coaches showed they are also impressed with MSU’s future, voting the Spartans preseason favorite to win the league title at the Big Ten men’s basketball media day in Chicago Sunday.
Hill and junior forward Adam Wolfe lead the Green and White teams, respectively, for the first half with nine points.
A second half Anderson throw down off an alley-oop from Hill brought the crowd to it’s feet and put the Green squad up 67-47.
Wolfe, who still is recovering from January surgery on a torn hamstring, impressed everyone in his first game back from the injured list, leading the White team with 16 points in 18 minutes on the court.
“Adam Wolfe was incredible considering he hasn’t been playing much,” Izzo said. “This is as hard and as long and as well as he’s played since he’s been injured.”
Izzo said overall he was pleased with both teams’ performances, adding that the plethora of talent will create depth to enable the Spartans to wear other teams down.
“This team is very young, but that’s not being stated as an excuse,” he said. “I’m going to expect a lot out of this team and we’re going to try to live up to the rankings that I think we could be at before the year’s over.”
If Sunday’s Green and White game was any indication of what is to come for the women’s basketball team, Lindsay Bowen will soon be a rising star.
The freshman guard poured in a team-high 23 points against the men’s practice squad to help lift the Spartans to a 74-42 victory Sunday at Breslin Center.
“I think it was pretty awesome to be out there for the first time and actually play a game,” Bowen said. “I’m still trying to learn the plays and learning how to take control of the team and everything else, but it will come together, I think.”
Admittedly nervous before her first game, Bowen played like a veteran, going 8-for-14 from the field and shooting an impressive 50 percent from behind the arc.
And Bowen wasn’t the only freshman turning heads in the matchup. Freshman forward Liz Shimek added 13 points and a team-high seven rebounds to MSU’s cause.
Head coach Joanne P. McCallie said though she was very impressed with the newcomers’ talent, the numbers didn’t surprise her at all.
“They’ve been so consistent, nothing they do would surprise me at all from the commitment they’ve had all summer,” McCallie said.
As a team, MSU was slow out of the gate and ended the first half with a 31-17 lead over the practice squad. MSU exploded after the half, scoring 30 points in the next quarter.
“We got a lot out of it, we need to work on a lot of things though,” junior guard Candice Jackson said. “Our future’s looking pretty bright. If (Bowen and Shimek) play every game like they played today, we’re looking pretty good.”
