Sure, MSU's Big Three of Maurice Ager, Shannon Brown and Paul Davis are key cogs in the MSU basketball machine, but more than those three, the most important cog is proving to be point guard Drew Neitzel.
When Neitzel's game is on, MSU is a hard team to stop. Yet, when the sophomore struggles, the whole team's offensive production goes down.
MSU head coach Tom Izzo addressed the importance of Neitzel's play at his weekly news conference.
"Quarterbacks run teams, presidents run companies; that's just the way it is," Izzo said. "Usually, if the head isn't working, the body dies.
"It doesn't matter how powerful the body is, and a quarterback, a point guard, in our system, is the head, is the quarterback, is the president, is the coach and Drew's got the ability to do that."
Izzo said Neitzel is the only player he would make an excuse for in terms of wearing down late in the season. Neitzel was pressed into playing most if not all of the minutes in the games when senior forward Matt Trannon was injured and his backup, freshman Travis Walton, was pressed into duty elsewhere.
"Nobody's more demanding on their point guards than me throughout 11 years," Izzo said. "I'm putting the ball in his hands a lot because I have confidence in what he can do.
"He didn't ask to play 40 minutes in those games, and his body was not capable of doing that. I think that had an effect on him."
Getting performances out of Neitzel like the one on Feb. 18 against Michigan — in which he scored 13 points and handed out 12 assists — makes the Spartans a much better basketball team as opposed to his performance in the Big Ten Tournament against Iowa. Neitzel shot 0-of-7 from the field, missing many of the open looks he is used to making.
"If he is clicking and getting his 10, 12, 14 points, that makes a lot of Shannon and Mo. I think he becomes a better passer into Paul and then we can play a true role guy at the four, whether it's Suton or Matt Trannon, and I think we become a better team," Izzo said.
Welcome back
Thursday's game against Purdue marked Trannon's return to the lineup, and he averaged 22.3 minutes in the Spartans' three games in the Big Ten Tournament, including 27 on Saturday against Iowa.
"The mask is no problem," Izzo said. "When he dove over the table and that, I knew we were in business. I'm not worried about Matt with the mask.
"I'm worried about Matt with his game, getting his game legs and everything back."
Trannon's face mask and mouthguard force him to breathe mainly out of his nose, which can make him tire more easily.
"I'm not sure he played great, but when I looked at 27 minutes after what he's been through, with the time off he's had, that guy, he follows in the Flintstone group very well," Izzo said.
"He showed some toughness and some grit that I'm not sure that many athletes in the entire country could do, with absolutely no interest in anything dealing with his injury. He gave me no indication that he was injured other than that 'Friday the 13th' mask."
All-Tournament
Ager was named to the Big Ten All-Tournament team.
Ager averaged 19 points per game in MSU's three games. He leads the Spartans in scoring through all games with 19.1 points per game.
