With only a month left until March, Michigan State University is making big turns in its basketball program. Currently, as of Feb 4, 2025, they were on a 13-game winning streak, playing the best basketball you could play. But eventually, that came to an end with their loss to the University of Southern California on Feb 1, 2025.
As of Feb 4, 2025, MSU basketball is ranked number nine in the country and first in the Big Ten with a 9-1 conference record. They have key victories over number 18 Illinois, a solid North Carolina team, and a solid Penn State team. Tom Izzo stated after their hard loss to USC “What starts bad, ends bad. And the start was atrocious. Wanted to go inside right off the bat. Turned the ball over twice. We took a couple of bad shots, I think it was 9-3, and I think we only had one shot. And then, we got down 21-27, and give our guys credit, they bounced back, but USC played better than us.”
MSU probably played their worst games of the season coming flat out of the get-go on both defense and offense. Michigan State overall has a solid defense and a solid inside-the-paint scoring team. They really rely on getting inside and scoring because they shoot the three-point shot atrociously. They don’t really take many bad shots though, most of their shots are open threes that have good looks, they just don’t drop in.
Michigan State doesn’t rely on one player though as they have had over seven players lead the team in scoring throughout the season so far, with multiple different players coming up at big times. Tom Izzo can rotate a total of ten players that get pretty fair playing time. It has shown that all of these players being able to play and score in different ways has been good for this team because of their solid record.
“I do want to appreciate what we’ve done. I do think we’ve done a lot,” Izzo said Monday. “I do think we’ve played different ways. I think we’ve won in different ways. We’ve shot it well, we’ve shot it poorly. We’ve rebounded well, we’ve rebounded on average. We’ve turned it over nine times, we’ve turned it over 17 times.” Izzo states about how they have won in different ways throughout this season, and how they aren’t getting the respect they deserve. This team has a chance to be special and they have been putting it out on display.
A really interesting statistic is that every time MSU scores 70 plus points they win. So if they are scoring there is a good chance that they come out with the win. Currently, they are ranked fourth in the country on their free throw percentage at 80.33%, which shows that they get lots of their points from being efficient at the line. This changes game plans for opposing teams, by them not wanting to foul to limit MSU’s time at the free throw. This game plan hasn’t really worked for opponents though as the Spartans are ranked inside the top 30 in free throw attempts per game at 23.2. If the Spartans get to the line they are most definitely going to overtake their chances and take the free points.
When it comes to the Spartans in the future they should be set to be very good. They have currently three total seniors leaving after this season with lots of juniors getting to step up next year being seniors. They have two top 100 freshmen and four stars coming in for the 2025-2026 season in the names of Cam Ward and Jordan Scott. These two players will serve this team very well with lots and lots of talent With both of them being taller small forwards. Both of these players will provide coach Izzo and his team with lots of perimeter shooting, rebounding, and defense.
Izzo speaks on both players saying “Jordan comes from a great pedigree. Not only the school where Grant Hill came from, but also both of his parents, Christy, who played at Maryland, and Jerome, who played at Miami (Florida). Jordan was the player of the year in the Virginia area. He’s a 6-6, 6-7 shooting wingman with size and he shoots the ball very well. “We are very excited about Cam. He’s been a winner his whole life. He’s won a state championship already, he’s won games in AAU ball and big-time tournaments. He averaged 26 points per game last year. He’s 6-8 with a 6-11 wingspan. And maybe what’s more important than anything is he’s tough and that is what really excited me when I first saw him.
