Head coach Tom Izzo said tonight’s game is one of concern, as it’s sandwiched between the rivalry win against No. 22 Michigan and Saturday’s tilt with Ohio State, on top of the fact Penn State isn’t a cupcake.

Penn State hired new head coach Patrick Chambers in the offseason and underwent a system overhaul.

“It’s going to be hard for the coaches because it’s a completely different system now,” Izzo said. “It’s going to be hard for players. They’ll look at the 2-9 record and not realize they’ve played some pretty good ball.”

But following Monday’s practice, the players seemed to acknowledge the Nittany Lions are better than they appear.

Much of the talk outside Breslin Center is on Saturday’s matchup, but the players know not to give any individual game more priority than another.

“Personally, I don’t have any game circled because anything is liable to happen, so I just go out and play as hard as I can,” sophomore guard Keith Appling said. “If we look past (Penn State), they’re liable to sneak up and beat us.”

In the midst of the Big Ten race in 2009, MSU dropped two games at home against cellar-dwellers Northwestern and Penn State.

Senior forward Draymond Green said those losses were a matter of letting their guards down with a three-game lead in the conference standings.

“We’re down one (game),” Green said. “So you don’t have any room for slip-ups. To win a Big Ten title, you have to win all your home games and steal a couple on the road. So we just have to take care of the home court on Wednesday.”

On Sunday, the Spartans had to deal with Michigan’s Big Ten Freshman of the Year candidate Trey Burke. With Penn State comes guard Tim Frazier, who is averaging 18.3 points per game.

Appling said Frazier is unlike any other guard in the league, while Izzo lauded him as the quickest and one of the top point guards in the nation.

“He’s quicker, (but) he doesn’t shoot it quite as well as Burke,” Izzo said. “But we have a good match with him in Keith.”

Although Appling struggled with Burke in Ann Arbor on Jan. 17, he stepped up his game in Sunday’s matchup and expects it to translate to tonight’s showdown with Frazier.

“I take pride in my defense, and he is one of the better guards in the league,” Appling said. “I’m not gonna do anything I haven’t done before; just play hard.”