OT: Adreian Payne returns for senior season with Spartans
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
So mature of you.
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?
April 29th, 2013 at 11:01 AM ^
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.
on a good day could draw double teams. Problem for MSU was his good days were usually only against Michigan.
Next year will be interesting. MSU will be great on D again, but its offensive style of play has never impressed me. I expect the same next year.
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.
*should be
I expect Izzo to kill any possibility of having a creative offense. It's just not his style or ability.
Harris and maybe Payne will make his offense look good at moments, but it's not an offense to fear.
Michigan has a great opportunity to up its defense with the returning sophomores and Morgan/Horford in the paint. Zak Irvin has great length too. The ability of Spike or Walton to defend at the PG position will be huge.
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.
April 29th, 2013 at 10:32 AM ^
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.
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:
Beauty of a no-look pass against a difficult Syracuse defense.
MSU will be slight favorite to win the B1G, but Indiana, Michigan and OSU aren't going anywhere with the recruits they got coming in. MSU otoh has a critical 2014 class to develop with 2013 being so underwhelming.
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.
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.
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.