"He did a great job taking the ball to the basket, getting fouled, getting to the free throw line," Izzo said. "It was impressive. That was a good debut for him. If he would have made six out of eight free throws, I’d be hugging and kissing him, but I can't do that when he made three out of eight."

After Carr’s 17 points, Jaxon Kohler went 5-for-12 from the field for 15 points and 10 rebounds. Jeremy Fears Jr. added 12 points, including two 3-pointers.

Izzo cycled through substitutions early and often to find the best fit on both sides of the ball. Outside of the four returning starters, sophomore guard Kur Teng, junior Samford transfer Trey Fort and sophomore Miami transfer Divine Ugochukwu saw the most minutes.

"Sometimes we have all five freshmen or new guys in there, and it's not healthy right now," Izzo said. "It is hard to get a rotation, but it was hard last year, too, and that's going to take a little time."

Spartan transfers and freshmen saw a lot of minutes in their first audition at the Breslin Center. Among new transfers, Fort led the way with nine points on a trio of threes, while Teng, who made his first career start, scored seven on 30% shooting.

Fort proved why he was the first transfer portal addition in the offseason, shooting confidently with a quick release. Izzo said he hopes that the guards, including Fort and Teng, can improve their defense going forward.

"We’ve got to get after our defense and our rebounding, that's what the next five practices will be like," Izzo said. "When you don't play good defense, and you let teams penetrate on you, you never rebound the ball as well, because they're either getting layups or they're getting penetration."

There were substitutions every few minutes for MSU as Izzo looked for what worked best. Carr and Kohler, when on the court together, found each other for easy lay-ins and alley-oops. The pair found holes in the Bowling Green defense, breaking up opponents’ scoring runs consistently.

"It's not easy to play smaller teams like this that have [athletic forwards], they’re smaller, you don't get that a lot in our league,” Izzo said. “So those two guys have played really well together. Also, they have a connection between them; it's good."

MSU was slow to find its groove in the backcourt. Bowling Green found consistent buckets in transition, and MSU struggled to stop the Falcons from punching it into the paint quickly. Bowling Green tied things up with 10 minutes to go in the second half, prompting four Spartan substitutions.

From there, MSU went on a 17-4 run to pull ahead and put any upset hopes to bed.

Kohler said he loved how the four captains, him, Carr, Fears Jr. and Cooper, played together, noting they have what it takes to be leaders this season.

"Us four [captains] are the guys who have been through this; we've been through the wars of last year, we know how to handle that pressure," Kohler said. "We know how coach is going to be, and I feel like we have the experience to play through that and then also lift our teammates up."

Michigan State faces No. 4 UConn on Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m. in Hartford, Connecticut. The game will be streamed live on WFSB and UConn+. Fans can access UConn+ through a web browser, Roku, Fire TV or Apple TV+.

"I think it’ll be great for us, and for them, it'll be a great situation to learn," Izzo said about playing UConn in exhibition games early. "I really appreciate that we do get to do this."