Senior guard Drew Neitzel shoots the ball against Memphis’s Joey Dorsey during the first half of the game Friday night at Reliant Stadium. Neitzel scored a total of 6 points Friday.
Houston — As the clock wound down on MSU’s Sweet 16 loss to Memphis and its season, Tom Izzo took a glimpse into the future.
The MSU head coach rotated freshmen guards Kalin Lucas, Chris Allen and Durrell Summers in with sophomore forward Raymar Morgan, junior center Goran Suton and junior guard Travis Walton as seniors Drew Naymick and Drew Neitzel said their goodbyes.
“Drew and Drew are two seniors that had a phenomenal career that unfortunately ended too short,” Izzo said after the game. “It’s hard to feel anything good for the future, at least for a day or two.”
Though some players said they were instantly looking to next season, many maintained that it was important to hold the Memphis first-half debacle in the back of their minds, letting it serve as motivation for summer workouts and next season’s schedule.
“We can’t ever stop thinking about this game,” Walton said. “We’ve got to take this game and learn from it and take what we did wrong and correct it. Everything we did wrong in this game is stuff we’ve been talking about for 30-some games. We’ve got to keep this game in the back of our minds and know that if you don’t compete in the Sweet 16 — because nobody competed — things happen.”
The Spartans will lose both a natural-born leader and the team’s best defensive post player in Neitzel and Naymick.
But they will return three of the team’s top four leading scorers (Morgan, Suton and Lucas) and retain depth in the front and backcourts.
The freshman trio, highly touted from the get-go, may have made more of an impact than expected.
Lucas played his way into Izzo’s starting lineup and into the MSU freshman record books, finishing the year fourth all-time in scoring and assists as a freshman and fifth in minutes played, while having his name mentioned with the likes of Mateen Cleaves.
And Allen’s progression in the offseason alone may place him in a position to compete for a starting role next season.
“I learned a lot,” Allen said. “At this level, you’ve got to do a lot of things you didn’t do in high school: play harder than you’ve ever played, communicate, play defense, rebound, dive on the floor for loose balls and do all the little things, while in high school, you had to just run down and shoot.
“In college, it’s a lot different and at this school, so much is expected. I like it like that.”
Along with Allen, Lucas likely will have to make up for Neitzel’s absence, as he consistently posed a deep scoring threat.
Allen became a specialist in that department and almost was guaranteed to hit when wide open, while Lucas seemed to take fewer shots as the season progressed.
For such an established shooter, Lucas didn’t take more than four shots from behind the arc in MSU’s last 12 games, but he still managed to consistently score in double figures.
“I think we all have a bright future here,” Lucas said. “I think this team has a bright future next year. We have three good freshmen coming in — good players, good athletes.”
Izzo’s recruiting class, which is considered a top-20 group and features two forwards in Delvon Roe and Draymond Green and a guard in Korie Lucious, will be expected to make an instant impact.
“It’s very positive since all three of those players are highly ranked,” Izzo said. “Delvon is an extremely competitive kid.
It’s going to make it harder for these guys to battle for their position with another freshman playing in front of them.”
Walton, who is all but guaranteed to be a captain for the third season, will make a strong case for Defensive Player of the Year in the Big Ten and re-entry to the starting lineup, because his play never suffered as he remained an effective player-coach from the bench, and managed a team-high 156 assists.
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Though Suton has the ability to be more than effective in the low post (he led the team with eight double-doubles), Naymick’s absence will place more pressure on redshirt freshman center Tom Herzog, whose playing time was marred with fouls and turnovers, and junior forward Marquise Gray, who has shown flashes of brilliance but never quite lived up to his billing.
Morgan, who once seemed like a lock for first-team All-Big Ten honors and possibly more, admitted that his fatal flaw will have to be adjusted as well.
The young forward has shown that he’s capable of just about every facet of the game and is frequently the beneficiary of a defensive mismatch.
“I’ve got to stay consistent,” Morgan said without hesitation.
Picked early in the year to compete for the Big Ten title, the Spartans didn’t live up to that billing set for them and the goals they set for themselves.
They’ll likely be selected to be in that contingent again next season, and surely will remember what’s necessary to play at that level.
“It hurt for a while but that’s what you’ve got to take from it — the pain — and start thinking about what you haven’t done and what you’ve got to do,” Suton said. “We’ve got a lot of guys coming back and can be even better next year.
“We want to win a championship. We talk about it every year and it’s been a while since we won one and we need to get back to those roots.”
As for the looming prospect of a homecoming for some players in a 2009 Detroit Final Four setting while still maintaining a stunning stat for Izzo and his staff?
“It’d be great for the Detroit players and a great environment for us and our fans,” Walton said.
“But I can’t let Coach not go, with every (four-year) player he has coached making it to the Final Four … and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want me to go out that way either.”
