No. 10 Michigan State men’s basketball kicks off its one-game exhibition stint Tuesday evening against Northern Michigan before its season opener against No. 1 Kansas next week. As for the players, they are more than ready to resume play in the Breslin Center.
“It’s been a while,” senior captain Matt McQuaid said. “I can’t wait to play in front of the Izzone. We have the best fans in the country and I’m excited.”
Though it is just an exhibition game, for coach Tom Izzo, going up against his alma mater is likely to spark some excitement.
“They’ll come here ready to play, and they’ll play hard” Izzo said about his former team after his team's practice Monday.
The Spartans already got a taste of game action Saturday afternoon when they faced off against No. 3 Gonzaga in a private preseason scrimmage at the Target Center in Minneapolis, in which they played two twenty minute halves, losing both 58-46 and 52-46.
Though it didn’t fare as well as MSU hoped, the secret scrimmage was a great learning experience heading into the season for the team.
“We saw a lot of good things, but we saw a lot of bad things too,” McQuaid said. “So, you know, we’ve got a lot of things to fix. But you know, we played alright, we just didn’t finish the way we wanted to in a couple games. We’ve still got a lot of work to do and we’re looking to do that.”
And according to Izzo, some of the same problems that haunted the Spartans last season trickled into Saturday’s scrimmage.
“Our guards didn’t play great,” Izzo said. “They were okay, we had too many turnovers with our guards. Our bigs on the other hand got to the free-throw line twenty-some times. There was some good things both Xavier (Tillman) and Nick (Ward) did, they rebounded pretty good. So we learned a little bit, we fouled too much.”
One of the biggest question marks still with this team has been who will start at the power forward spot. And Izzo may have an answer for that, at least for tonight.
“Who starts between Kenny (Goins) and X (Xavier Tillman), I don’t know yet,” Izzo said. “Tomorrow, I’m going to start Kenny.”
Izzo said he will try to avoid putting Goins and Tillman on the court simultaneously due to the Spartans' lack of depth at power forward.
“I’m probably going to start Kenny because I don’t feel if I have both those bigs in together and one gets into foul trouble and one gets tired, I’m going to have some problems because of the lack of depth at that position.
How the two fare in tonight’s exhibition could be the final decider for Izzo as to who gets the starting nod. Tipoff time for tonight’s exhibition game is 7 p.m.
Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
