This will make MSU the early favorite to win the BIG. Going to be another great season of BIG basketball
http://www.mlive.com/spartans/index.ssf/2013/04/adreian_payne_announces_he_wil.html
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This will make MSU the early favorite to win the BIG. Going to be another great season of BIG basketball
http://www.mlive.com/spartans/index.ssf/2013/04/adreian_payne_announces_he_wil.html
FML
So mature of you.
So they've got to to be ranked top 5 preseason right? That's a whole lot of talent returning but they have little depth unless Alex Gauna progresses.
All the pundits seem to love this team with everyone returning.
They'll probably be 3, after Kentucky and Louisville, maybe 4 after UNC if Wiggins goes there.
Yes, I would think top 5 for sure.
3 5* stars and 2 4* in the starting lineup. They will be formidable.
2 seniors a junior and 2 soph's in the starting lineup is a nice mix
Valentine and Trice coming off the bench is pretty good too. They need one of their Bigs to be serviceable, but with Kaminski, Guana, and the freshman they will find someone.
If ex Michigan target Russel Byrd ever gets it together they will have a nice 3 point threat.
Michigan will also have three 5-stars and two 4-stars in the starting lineup. Just think about that for a second.
Oh yes, Michigan is loaded. I wouldn't trade rosters with MSU, but with Payne's return they are going to be tough.
comparing 5 stars in regards to next season? IMO
McGary > Payne
GRIII > Dawson
Harris > Irvin
as for the others
Appling and Trice > Albrecht and Walton. Only because Appling is a senior.
Morgan > Costello. It's the senior thing again
Michigan bench > MSU bench
State will be good. They were good this year, and Michigan was better. I don't see any reason to expect otherwise next year. We're upgrading at every single position other than PG, and Walton should be solid.
are we upgrading at shooting guard?
Stauskas will have a year under his belt and be able to make 70 out of 76 3balls next time it is raining on court!
Idk if it is as much of an upgrade at SG but have Sophomore Stauskas, levert and throw in Irvin for a big boy line up and I'd take that. Hardaway to me was a really good player but definitely a replaceable player.
post. Perhaps we'll be better off. I certainly hope so, but I think it is a reach to say with conviction that we are going to be better at the 2 even after losing a first team B1G player (coaches pick) at that position.
We made it deeper in the tournament than they did but the season series was 1-1 with us winning by 1 at home and losing by 20+ on the road.
Win more games + lose fewer games + against better competition = better
We were also a lot younger - the biggest reason for the 20+ road loss earlier in the season
Head-to-head results don't always tell the whole story. Sometimes a team is just a bad matchup. Wisconsin went 2-0 against us, but I don't think they were better.
A 20-point loss looks the same as a one-point loss in the W-L column. I am going to go on NCAA Tournament results and say that Michigan was a lot better than Sparty when it counted the most.
Appling is not a good point guard. He's a shooting guard who really doesn't shoot that well. They put him in at point guard because he's insanely athletic, but he doesn't pass nearly well enough to be considered one of the conference's best point guards. The minute he has to face a tough defender who can negate his athleticism, he struggles and does nothing. I would take Walton & Spike all day over Appling, especially considering the shooters Michigan has on the outside that can nail a basket off a quick pass
What about Jabrill Peppers?
Who was the third 5-star guy besides Payne and Harris? Appling? He hasn't lived up to it if so.
Dawson
Really? I'm surprised. He seems like a pretty raw talent to me.
Dawson has an NBA body and NBA talent he just needs to put it all together.
He tore his acl late in his freshman year and missed the NCAA tourney. His soph season was a bit of a disappointment, but I would expect a major jump up this season. He is a talent.
MSU may be better going small more often next season; Play Dawson at the 4 and get their more skilled players on the floor.
Everyone is saying that, but I'm not totally sold on them as national-championship material. I think they need to shore up the point guard position - they committed a ton of turnovers this year. Also, defenses can key in on Payne more with Nix gone.
Losing Nix is addition by subtraction. He did more to clog everything up and slow down their offense than help them with rebounding and physicality.
Are you being serious? Losing 10 points and 7 rebs a game isn't addition by subtraction. Another guy on their team averaged 10 and 7, and his name was Adreian Payne.
I disagree. He made them a tough matchup for a lot of teams (including us) with their two-big lineup, especially after Payne developed an outside shooting touch. I think we match up with MSU a lot better with him gone.
Yeah, this is what I mean. Nix could be tough in the post, but he was wildly inconsistent. Even after he lost all the weight, he still couldn't move very well. In addition, since his range was so limited, MSU basically had to put him on the block, clogging things up for Harris and Appling, who are good off the drive. Payne has a much more offensively diverse game. He's more mobile and has range to the 3. MSU will be more diverse offensively and able to play at more than one pace. As for Nix's rebounding, Izzo's teams are never going to struggle on the boards.
He was a bad matchup for us, because we didn't have (at that time in the year) two bigs we trusted defensively. But MSU without him has a higher upside.
To me Nix's biggest liability was pick and roll D. Anybody who got past MSU's perimeter D had an excellent opportunity for an uncontested layup. Aaron Craft absolutely ripped Nix a new one on dribble pentetration resulting in layup after layup.
and a meat-grinder D. Expect MSU to win at home against us by 5 next year, and us to win by 15 in A2. Nothing creative or fun about playing for Izzo.
That's another reason he is finding it harder to recruit. John Beilein's offense is the "fun" offense, while Izzo is the stern taskmaster whose offense is more like work than play. Of the two schools, Michigan is finally becoming the "destination" school again.
But if it's true (as posted below) that Payne will remain at the 4, then that means a guy like Gauna replacing Payne at the 5, and that's probably a step down.
I really don't know that it will be.
I may be exaggerating the limits of Nix's game, but most players big enough to plausibly play the 4 or 5 are going to approach his production just as a function of being large men on the floor. Even if Izzo's not offensively innovative, Nix's absense frees up the offense from having a big blob on the low post clogging things up every position and potentially add something as a pick and pop player and in the open court, two things Nix could never do.
He did give them a good post option when their offense got stagnant, but I think a lot of their offensive stagnancy (is that even a word) owed to his presence on the floor.
I agree with snarling wolverine. I don't see them being better this coming season than last. In fact, they'll likely be worse.
I've never seen anything from Dawson that would make me think he's gonna accel at anything other than defense, rebonding and the occasional open-court jam. He's not an NBA player by any means as he's undersized at the 3 and not at all a scoring threat as a 2. The fact that he doesn't have long arms like Draymond Green means he can't even carve out a niche like he has. Athlete or not, I just don't see it. Never have.
Appling regressed as a Junior and I'm not sold on him improving this season. Harris is a good player and will be their best but if Payne has to play the 5, you won't see the best of him. Conversely, this means more Gauna and Costello, which is laughable TBH.
Meh, we will be alright.
Damn. Why can't we ever have a Top-20 pick big man return for another year? Oh wait...
Well, Taylor Lewan is a big man returning for his senior season for you guys, but I get your point
Not worried:
Bring it on.
Well hell...they ought to be the odds on favorite to be the highest ranked team in the tourney to lose in the Sweet 16....again.
MSU's gonna be good next year. Seems like with all the talent that's leaving the conference, MSU has a good shot to run away with the conference title
thats what everybody thought about indiana this year but it'll still be close i figure. We should be as good maybe a better matchup with state, OSU is still solid, wiscy is always tough.
...the post Sullinger osu team. Going to be good. I Ustinov whether they will be definitively great. I think we are in the same boat. Depends a lot on our new pieces and how we react to losing a team MVP. I think without nix they are a much different and less intimidating team but maybe more athletic.
Interesting how State's 50-50 guys almost always seem to come back and ours almost always leave. I know Harris and Payne let Izzo get the information for them rather than applying for an evaluation. I wonder what the guy tells them.
NBA draft chances is a very RCMB-ish thing to do.
What about GRIII and mcgary?
tate's 50-50 guys almost always seem to come back and ours almost always leave
This isn't true. We had at most three 50-50 guys this year (Burke doesn't count - his decision was obvious), and two stayed. Last year, when Burke was 50-50, he stayed. The year before, Morris left, so altogether that works out to three of five staying and two leaving.
They are the conference favorite, but they're basically this year's team less Nix. I don't get the national title contender talk.
They're going to need much better PG play to get anywhere near a Final Four.
We want the Big Ten to be strong.
I would imagine the preseason polls will have the B1G order as something like:
MSU
Michigan
Indiana
Iowa
Ohio State
Wisconsin
Purdue
Minnesota
Illinois
PSU
Nebraska
NW
People seem to like OSU more than that. I don't entirely buy it. They'll be, perhaps, the best defensive team in the nation but you still have to put the ball in the hoop. They don't have anyone who's proven to be able to hit even a 15-foot jumper. But I expect them to be the 3rd favorite. The rest looks good.
Ross is probably going to be the man, and he has a lot of talent. I don't think they'll be any worse offensively this year.
Ross and Thompson will help make up for the loss of Thomas, and they'll probably be better defensively than they were this year, b/c Thomas was their worst defender.
I'm not sure how they are going to score at an efficient clip. I mean they will be a good team and maybe a great defensive team but without Thomas they don't really have too many guys who can score much on their own. We'll see. Maybe Ross steps it up. Or perhaps Scott or Thompson.
I think most folks will have MSU, U of M and Indiana predicted ahead of them anyway. Iowa is debateable I guess but I like them a lot for next year. They return basically everybody and they lost a lot of close games this year, 7 games by 4 points or less so they may have been better than their record indicated. Kenpom even has them finishing as #23 with their NIT run.
OSU will be predicted to finish higher than Indiana who will take a big step back with the losses of Zeller, Oladipo, Watford and Hulls. They still have Yogi I guess
I agree very much with the majority of that list, but my personal opinion is that OSU and Indiana should be switched. OSU is going to have Scott-Craft-Thompson-Ross-Williams, (I'm assuming that Lenzelle Smith Jr. actually gets knocked out of the starting lineup and becomes their 6th man) which I think will be the best defensive team in the league and possibly the country. I think Ross can replace a lot of what they're losing in Thomas. The guy is a phenomenal scorer and Thomas was the weak link defensively, which has been the knock on Ross. On the other hand, outside of Smith coming off the bench, they're going to have a virtually non-existent bench. With regards to Indiana, I think they're really going to struggle. Even if Vonleh comes in and wins FOTY (which I do not think he will), they only have Yogi and Sheehy returning. It'll be tough to win games at Assembly Hall (as always), but they're going to struggle to get road wins. I see them going 12-6 or 11-7.
MSU will be tough as they have, in my opinion, the two best players in the league in Harris and Payne, but the rest of the team is very mediocre. They won't have great depth, they'll have average at best outside shooting and they seemed to have suspect discipline/chemistry this season. Overall, it should be a great season again and I very much like our position. I'm really excited about Walton and Irvin.
RCMB's gotta be all "come at me brah" just now
Michigan State had a lot of hype going into 2010 as well, if I recall correctly.
Exactly this, preseason hype means pretty much nothing. I say let the games be played and then we will see if sparty can live up to the hype.
Meant something for us. Preseason Top 5 and finished #2
For the most part they mean nothing it is pretty much to hype up early games. Of course it is always amazing to be ranked high regardless of the time of year. Yes we were ranked top 5 and finished number 2, so there is some correlation, but Kentucky was also ranked #3 and lost first round of the NIT. Even if Noel stayed healthy they would have been a bubble big dance team.
Who cares? MSU has experience coming back, but so do we. We've got guys coming back who have played for a national title, so they won't be fazed by anything little brother throws at them. I'm confident Beilein will find a way to beat them at least once next year.
It's a pretty big jump to consider them national title contenders when they have basically the same team that lost in the sweet 16 minus Nix.
I kind of disagree with that because the Sweet 16 isn't anything to scoff at in college basketball. I mean hell, look at us we lose to Ohio in round 1 in 2012 and make it to the national title last year. If you look at just the sweet 16 last year, you have to think they are on of the best teams going into the season, of course that all changes when the games start. Here is the list of last year's sweet 16:
Teams probably not likely to make it back: Oregon, Wichita State, La Salle, and, FGCU.
Teams that lost a lot and will have a difficult time: Miami(FL), Kansas, Indiana, and Marquette.
Now to the individual teams remaining:
Sparty - only lost Nix, who had his moments, but the only thing I remember him for is his ball-tap on Zeller.
Michigan- We lose Burke and THJ, but we have a more experienced roster now, and if Irvin and Walton are as good as advertised we can make another deep run.
Duke - Lost Kelly, Curry, and Plumlee, but will have a good recruiting class, and Coach K always seems to be in the hunt.
Louisville- Should be pretty good with Russ returning.
Ohio- Losing Deshaun Thomas, but will have a very good defense.
Arizona- Good recruiting class and returning some good players.
Florida- Returning a decent amount and have a pretty good recruiting class coming in.
Syracuse- lost MCW, but return CJ Fair, so they could be good.
If I had to pick 5 teams who could win the title at this point they would be, in order: Kentucky, Louisville, Florida, UNC, and Sparty. Of course this is April 28, so any speculation is pretty meaningless because there have been no games played yet.
We added Mcgary, GRIII, Stauskus, Albrecht and Levert between those seasons.
True, but it is not that big of a jump to think a team who reached the sweet sixteen, again nothing to scoff at, can win the national title. I guess the better one would be 2011 Uconn, even though their previous recruiting class had Jeremy Lamb. I know we aren't supposed to care about them, but I think we have to agree they will be a top 10 team next year. We probably will start the season right outside the top 10, possibly 11 or 12,but after a few games when everyone can see Walton and Irvin, we should easily move into the top 10. Note, I am not saying we aren't a top 10 team because we are, but I feel the media and coaches will rank us around there because of Burke leaving.
The difference between Michigan and MSU will be based on which players take their game to the next level. If McGary plays like Bill Walton circa 2013, Glen Robinson becomes an All-American or one of the freshman surprises, I like our chances.
For State, if Harris becomes an All-American or someone else becomes a force, then Sparty will be tough to beat.
Bill Walton circa 2013? The guy's like 60 and has had a ton of leg surgeries.
I think McGary can probably do better than that.
My bad...should have said 1973.
Bill Walton has lost a step or two. I'd aim higher if I were Mitch.
Edit: beaten to the punch. Shoulda THROWN IT DOWN faster.
Very good recovery though.
From what I've heard, they were planning on moving Payne to the 5. That would nulify the major improvement he's shown by being able to step out and hit long jumpers.
If he continues to play at the 4, Costello or Gauna come in to the 5 which still leaves a major hole with Nix departing.
I think the only way MSU gets over what they did last year is if the recruits they have coming in can make an impact.
They have recruits coming in?
Izzo said Payne will play the 4 and even some 3, but not 5.
Thanks for the insight. I was thinking that they might try and go with a small ball line up with Payne at the 5 at times.
Isn't Izzo's style.
Everyone here seems to be forgetting about Kenny Kaminsky. Kid is a stud and is fully recovered from shoulder (?) surgery and is a classic stretch 4 who can shoot and play inside. He and Costello will replace Nix's minutes and make the team more athletic overall. Costello really came on at the end of the year in his own right.
No one seems willing to acknowledge that Harris was hurt all year and still won frosh of the year. if he's 100% healthy he'll be scary good. Schilling will probably redshirt, and the young guys will all be better - THAT is what will make them the favorite. Not sure why that's so hard to understand. Valentine will be more controlled, Trice healthy (also hurt all year), etc. They have depth everywhere.
Dawson is the real wild card. Kid could be a lottery pick if he could learn how to shoot. Right now he's just a freakish athlete...but not yet a basketball player. if he puts in the time in the gym they will be tough to beat.
Give credit where it's due: they have a classic set up for a run: RS Frosh to Seniors evenly spread across the court and two bonafide stars.
Dawson was terrible for the last two months of the season. Payne and Harris are studs. Appling is terrible. They also lose their ability to go big with Nix, Payne, and Dawson in the game at the same time and I also think that Walton will be better than Appling because that isn't hard to do.
It's just that Trey Burke being awesome makes him look terrible even though he's pretty good.
I don't really think their depth is that good. Valentine turned the ball over a ton last year, Trice gotowned on screens, Byrd couldn't hit a shot or do anything, and MSU got abused in the paint when Costello or Gauna came in.
We also gained 2 4 star and 1 5 star recruit in the offseason last year to vault us into the NT game. It's hard to expect a team that didn't gain anybody and lost one of their starters to make it further in the tournament than they did.
I agree that we did bring all those in and it without a doubt helped, but with what the other sweet 16 teams lost, they have a very good chance at making an elite 8/final four run, and once you get to that point almost anything can happen. Also, a lot will be dependent on how the teams are seeded in the tournament because that can make a huge difference
This may be difficult for you to comprehend, but players actually improve from freshman to soph seasons. Especially when they were injured for most of their freshman year. an Improved Harris is a scary thought, and Valentine showed some pretty heady game in the last few weeks of the season. He's very good.
Why is it so difficult to give them credit? you sound like the tyipcal rcmb whiners who bag on Mcgary for being old. And Trey was a 3 star....stars don't mean shit. Players play...doesn't matter how many stars they were arbitrarily labeled with in high school.
Harris can improve all he wants but if he as an incompetent Appling running the point he won't get as many looks. Appling is a great athlete who is more of a combo guard being forced to run the point, who also struggles mightily when shooting the ball, I believe he had multiple 0-10+ games last year. Then add in that Payne is gonna want to "get his" and this team has the makings of a team that could implode if they struggle early and they lose chemistry. Yes give them credit now, but you also have to realize that guys plateau, a la Hardaway, and Appliing probably isn't going to get much better in the next year, especially in the areas that he needs to improve in: shooting the ball consistently and setting his teamates up.
I think the hype is relying on some improvement by the young kids. The first summer is usually when players make their biggest jump. This will be the first summer for Harris, Dawson, Trice, Valentine, and Costello.
McGary, Stauskas, GRIII, and Albrecht all are rising sophomores with one 1 year (OK, a LONG one year thankfully) of college experience.
Add in experience from Morgan, a developing Horford (with practically only one full year of game experience), another freshman phenom in Zak Irvin, and a solid freshman PG in Derrick Walton, a redshirt year from Donnal....I argue that this team may be a more complete team than last year.
The incremental gains in experience and fabulous incoming freshman should keep us in the Top 5 discussion....but I really don't care if we are in that discussion early on anyway.
I just hope we are in that discussion at the end.
We should be in the top 5 discussion, but I don't think the media will see it that way, I mean how many games in the tourney were they against us? Once they see us play they will see the error in their thinking and, hopefully, put us in the correct spot.
I think Michigan will be good next year, but they do have a couple questions which will keep them out of the top 5. Mainly, replacing the POY at PG, a player that made everyone around him better and drew the defense towards him, leaving others with open looks. MSU dealt with that last year too when they lost an All-American and do-it-all player.
You also lost the only 2 players that could consistently create their own shot. Stauskus can do that next year, but he needs to get stronger. Maybe Walton and Irvin can be that guy too. But you guys saw firsthand in the season how freshmen don't always show up for big games.
They will not advance past the Sweet 16. The wonders hall curse lives on.
About a Wonders hall curse but what about the Mark Hollis curse? Ever since that douche essentially tweeted to Trey Burke to go pro save one away game the football and basketball programs are headed in different directions.
With Payne back next year, it will be up to Appling and Dawson whether they are national championship contenders or not. If those two play like they did this year, they are probably sweet sixteen bound.
Feels like Appling has been there forever. I've been thinking he was a senior for months now
If MSU makes it to the FF next season, it is going to be due in a large part to Gary Harris. Harris battled shoulder issues all season and still was regarded as one of the best frosh in the country. Harris is one of those players, like Trey Burke, who makes the players around him better.
In M's win against the Spartans, Izzo designed a play to get Harris an open shot in the left corner, but Valentine went the wrong way and blew the play up. One frosh playing like a frosh, the other waiting in the corner welcoming the pressure of a game winning shot on the road. As for me, I am glad Valentine went the wrong way and cut Appling's drive off, because I wanted no part of Gary Harris with an open look with the game on the line.
I think we will be in the top 5 to start the season. That's where we were last season and we return 3/5 starters from a NT run where last year we were coming off of a loss in the first round.
Its possible, but I'm not so sure. I'd bet we'll start somewhere between 5-10, or at the very worst, 10-15. This is just my opinion, but I think to start the season, the polls will weigh Burke's departure as a lot harder to overcome than we all think it is. After all, you don't just replace the best player in college basketball.
The Gholston curse? Ever since that asshat twisted Denard's head and punched Lewan, bad things have happened to them. From losing to us in the last seconds in football, to not making it past the sweet 16 while their rival makes it to the NT game, to their best recruit in Drake Harris flipping to Michigan, to being put in a division with three of CFB's powerhouses.
There is still more evidence for the WHC. That year UM swept MSU in basketball for the first time in...? They still haven't won in Crisler. They haven't advanced past the sweet 16. Michigan is pulling down 5* recruits and Izzo is reaching for 3*'s...Their most hated rival makes the NCAA Final...There may be something to this, Karma is a !?$&@.
Why is it a curse?
Sports curses have been part of sports culture since the first leather ball was inflated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports-related_curses
You might remember the curse of Bobby Layne or the curse of the little brother. They involve a team or individual being punished by the sports gods for "slights or misdeeds real or imagined". I'd guess that the wonders hall incident qualifies.
I might be in the minority, but I don't think Payne is that great. I still like Michigan ahead of them heading into next season.
Payne is a very talented player, MSU will be good and will desrve to be ranked top 3 and be the favorite in the B1G. 3 McD's All Americans and a 5 star in their starting lineup is formidable.
Think we'll be a top 12 team to start and could improve on that as the season goes. Like our lineup too, not worried, the games are won on the court not in the polls. Would not surprise me to see both MSU and Michigan in the Final Four next season.
Kentucky has to be #1, the class they are bringing in is hard to believe, if they get Wiggins, it will be 7 McD's AA's in one class and I think 7 of the top 13 players, that's just silly, the Fab 5 had 4 of the top 12 I believe.
I give it 3 years before this year's Kentucky class has some sort of NCAA violation. There is no way I can see a class being this good, even with how good Calipari is at getting people to the NBA. Based on Rivals rankings, and assuming they get Wiggins, Marcus Lee (20th best in the nation) and James Young (11th best) will be coming off the bench.
for assembling phenomenal basketball recruiting classes by potentially less than entirely honest means may be better left to other fanbases.
See Pot v. Kettle.
His academic story is very admirable and he seems to really enjoy college life. Good for him. Will be that much better when we beat them ; )
His academic story is very admirable and he seems to really enjoy college life. Good for him. Will be that much better when we beat them ; )
and I'm going to get negged to hell for this but a team that we went 1-1 against (1 pt win at home, 23 pt loss on the road) which is returning 4 of 5 starters doesn't concern all of you? After we lost Trey Burke too? When did we all become MSU football fans? MSU is going to be damn good this year
Well, they do "concern" me in the sense that I certainly think they can win the Big Ten title. But I think you're reading too much into a couple of games. Actually, you seem to be reading entirely into the first game and not so much into the second. It sounds like you are writing off the game in Crisler as a fluke and assuming the game in EL told the true story, when every other datapoint from the season suggests otherwise.
I agree that we played a horrible game in East Lansing. I think we didn't match up well with them in general and they caught us at a terrible time to boot, right after the Wisconsin disaster. But we went on, in the tournament, to beat teams that were better than MSU - Kansas, Florida and Syracuse, and almost Louisville. The Michigan team that played in the tourney was a lot better than the Michigan team that played in February. We got better; they pretty much stayed the same.
Burke and THJ will be tough losses, but we've still got a lot to work with coming back, and an outstanding recruiting class coming in. I'm pretty confident we'll be good again next year. Exactly how good, well we'll see.
Who?
poop poop.
To UM never playing that guy again...
It's good for the strength of the conference and good for the rivalry. The spoils taste so much sweeter when both teams are at their best and you win. I'm just so happy to be looking forward to another fun basketbal season. Thanks to GRIII and Mitch coming back the spartys won't be so quick to start talking about basketball season during halftime on November 2.
The point isn't that we don't think MSU will be bad. They'll be good like this season but unless those 4 players returning get a lot better, they'll be a lot like this year. I don't get how you can expect them to all of a sudden be a NC contender when the group of guys they have have lost in the first round once, and lost twice in the sweet 16. Also while we are losing Burke and Hardaway we are adding 2 4 stars and 1 5 star while they aren't adding any 4/5 stars.
I don't see how you can fail to mention them as one of the contenders, does that mean they are the favorite? absolutely not, I think that has to go to Kentucky, but they are absolutely one of the teams that can make a deep run in the tourney, you seem to act like the sweet 16 is a joke, and it is far from that. I posted what the other sweet 16 teams lost, and it is not out of the ordinary to think they have the potential to make the deep run. let's look at the other contenders:
Kentucky- All freshmen, can they actually produce a national title?
Michigan- Can we succesfully replace Burke, and to some extent THJ, I don't think we will have an issue with THJ, but I think a lot of us, me included, are way too confident in Walton running the PG. Watching his videos he should have no problems, but who knows once he gets into B1G action and the NCAA.
Louisville- Can they overcome the loss of Siva and Dieng, and will Ware be able to return to pre-injury form?
Arizona- Can they finally live up to the potential they have?
Ohio- How much does Thomas mean to them, they will have a killer defense, but who knows on offense?
Duke- How will losing Curry, Plumlee, and Kelly hurt them, they have a good recruiting class though.
So why do you think it is so out there that MSU is considered on of the few in the national title hunt? Whether we want to admit it Izzo is a hell of a coach, they have at least one lottery pick, a potential first round pick, and experience. Additionally their freshmen and Dawson will get their first summer to improve, which can have a huge impact. Do they have their issues, absolutely, but show me a team that does not. Again, I think if I were doing the odds right now I would have them at 5/6 best chance to win the title, so I don't think it is too crazy to consider their chances. I do hope they only have 4 losses next year though, two in the regular season to us, in the big ten tourney to us, and in the national title to us.
However, it is the tourney, and crazy stuff happens all the time in it. A lot has to do with how you match up with the team, and if a team has a hot or cold night, and that is why it is so fun to watch.
I have to agree with Gordon Berenson, we are exactly like Sparty football fans, we had one really good year, and suddenly we think we are the best, Sparty will be really good next year, and whether we want to admit it their basektball success in the 2000's is something we should strive for. Similarly, our football success is something they will always strive for. The only difference being, we can actually achieve, and outdo, their basketball success. They will never come anywhere near our football success, unless we start measuring success in Pizza Bowl appearences.
I am just glad we are able to talk about basketball being relevant again.
That's huge for them, and they should be the favorite in the conference. But at the same time, you never know how guys will play over seasons, and while Payne is a great athlete I wonder how he'll handle playing inside without Nix.
I think the sweet 16 is formidable but to win the NT you need to win 4 more games past that against harder competition and losing Nix will be difficult. They will have a harder time going big without him unless they want to play Costello who wasn't very impressive last year. I think we are much more of a NT contender than they are with 3/5 returning off of a team that made it there adding two 4 star recruits and 1 5 star recruit vs. 4/5 returning off a team that lost 4 rounds earlier.
This is my last post on this topic. I think Sparty has to be mentioned among 7-8 national title contenders for next year, but so are we. It is preseason, and very early preseason at that. If their team can stop being incredibly streaky, then they have a good chance to make a run, but that can be a lot for them. All this talk right now is a little premature for all the teams because no games have been played and a decent amount of the recruits are probably waking up tomorrow to attend HS. In 10 months we will have a much clearer picture of how good all the teams are and who the pretenders and contenders are, but right now on paper Sparty is a contender, but so are we, and I would much rather be in our shoes.
Just out of curiosity who are your contenders for the title next year?
Unlike Spartan football, we have actually made the national title game and I don't think it's impossible for them to win it all but I have heard the overtures the past three years on how this is Sparty's year and they haven't done it with this group of players.
At least in a sense I rather not discuss the I'm better than You's. We will be solid, moo u will be good. Michigan shall prevail.
Cheers