Cash Kruth
Auburn Hills — There’s an old saying that reads, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
If that saying is true, then the MSU men’s basketball team should be in peak physical condition heading into the Big Ten season, which opens on New Year’s Eve in Minnesota.
Eleven games into the season MSU is 9-2. The Spartans have dealt with a lot:
Freshman forward Delvon Roe without a good knee.
A 35-point drubbing by arguably the best team in men’s college basketball history.
Six games without senior center Goran Suton, who is proving his worth with each passing game.
A lineup that, on Dec. 27 — 71 days after Midnight Madness — still isn’t set.
A fall from No. 5 to No. 18, and now back up to No. 11, in the rankings.
MSU has dealt with a whole season’s worth of bumps and bruises in a just a few short months. But with four days remaining until the Big Ten season, the Spartans look to be molding into the team many predicted they’d be.
Oh, sure. They committed plenty of ugly turnovers in Saturday’s 82-66 win over Oakland. In the Golden Grizzlies’ 15-0 run in the first half and in parts of the second half they played some pretty sloppy basketball.
On the bright side, sophomore guard Kalin Lucas actually looked for his own shot, Suton kissed the ball off the glass and hit two 3-pointers and the alley-oop from Lucas to fellow sophomore guard Durrell Summers will most likely garner a few votes for the top honor on SportsCenter’s “Top Ten Plays.”
The Spartans weren’t exactly a well-oiled machine, but they looked like a team that could do more than their fair of damage come March.
Still, March isn’t for a few months, and the Spartans haven’t won a Big Ten Championship since 2000-01 — a long drought for a program which considers itself elite.
All season long, this team hasn’t looked like a prototypical Tom Izzo-coached team.
They can run and dunk with the best of them, but other than a handful of players, toughness often doesn’t seem as big of a priority for them as it was during MSU’s hey-day.
Finally, 11 games in, this team looks to be slowly forming a similar identity.
After a blocked shot late in the second half by Roe, the freshman forward walked upcourt with a swagger, junior forward Raymar Morgan smirked and senior guard Travis Walton was smiling.
Roe’s chest was puffed out, with a look in his eye which seemed to say, “Bring it.”
They can deal with it.
They’ve already been through a lot.
Cash Kruth is a State News men’s basketball reporter. He can be reached at kruthcas@msu.edu.
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