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Neitzel eases into starting spot at Iowa

February 7, 2005

Iowa City, Iowa - "And starting at guard, a 6-foot freshman from Grand Rapids, Michigan, No. 12, Drew Neitzel."

That's how it began for MSU freshman guard Drew Neitzel, who started his first career game in front of 15,500 rabid fans at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in MSU's 75-64 win over Iowa on Saturday.

"I thought he ran the team, I thought he pushed the ball very well and got up and down, made a couple good shots and I thought he fed the post pretty well," head coach Tom Izzo said.

Feeding the post was big, as the Spartans' big men, junior center Paul Davis, senior swingman Alan Anderson and sophomore center Drew Naymick combined for 26 points, and MSU had 32 points in the paint for the game.

And for the first time this season, and only second time in the past two years, Chris Hill's number was not on the scoreboard when the game began.

"Chris was real positive with me," Neitzel said. "Chris is a great guy and ? told me to go out there and kill, and I just played the best I could."

Hill had some advice for his young understudy before the game.

"I just told him to keep doing what he's doing," Hill said. "Just attack and that's what he did early - attacked and pushed the ball and got us going a little bit."

Neitzel played a career-high 25 minutes and scored six points, his first two coming on a leaning floater with 6:30 elapsed in the game. He only turned the ball over once.

Not only has Neitzel's game improved, his confidence has as well.

"From the beginning of the season, I'm just more sure of myself and playing with more confidence," he said. "If I play to my potential and play with confidence, good things happen."

"It's just a start, yeah, it was exciting and all and it was a lot of fun, but I'm just glad we got the win."

Although there was speculation since Thursday that Neitzel might start the game, he didn't expect it.

"They've been talking to me a little bit, but they just brought it up for this game that they were going to have me start and it worked out," Neitzel said.

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