Michigan State basketball's deep rotation gives them fresh legs when it matters most

Michigan State basketball’s deep rotation gives them fresh legs when it matters most

Posted by author March 2, 2025 Basketball

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EAST LANSING – There exists a beauty in the team-first basketball Michigan State continues to play.

A deep rotation. Contributions from throughout the roster. Balance across the board, from production to minute distribution.

And in doing so, Tom Izzo – who often talks about “unintended consequences” of decisions – is learning his shift in philosophy for these Spartans is reaping some unexpected benefits as March arrives.

“We’ve had some good benches, but not where they were utilized like these guys,” Izzo said after practice Friday. “We just got a togetherness that they all understand what each guy is doing.”

No. 8 MSU (23-5, 14-3 Big Ten) carries a four-game win streak into a fourth straight ranked matchup Sunday against No. 11 Wisconsin (22-6, 12-5). Tipoff is 1:30 p.m. at Breslin Center (CBS).

After years of whittling his stretch-run rotation by January with success – 26 straight NCAA tournament appearances, 10 regular-season Big Ten titles and five other second-place finishes in 30 seasons attest to this – Izzo continues to deploy 10 Spartans in waves.

And continues to get buy-in without ego from all of them.

“I think what’s nice about us is that we have a lot of guys that aren’t worried about their personal stats or their personal records more than our team winning,” junior center Carson Cooper said Friday. “I think that’s something that we might not have had as strongly the last two years. This year, everyone’s really set on doing what they’re best at to the best of their ability to help our team win.

“And when winning is ultimately the main goal, it kind of changes the whole dynamic.”

Though roles have shifted throughout the season, all 10 rotation players are averaging double-digit minutes – with Xavier Booker’s 14.7 minutes the fewest and Jaden Akins’ 26.4 the most. The Spartans are the only team in the nation with with that many players logging that many minutes, and MSU, Arizona and Alabama are the only three top-25 teams with seven players scoring at least seven points.

In Big Ten play, MSU is outscoring opponents 36-31.5 on average in the first half. In the second halves of their 17 league games, the Spartans have a 40.6-34.5 points. But during the ongoing four-game streak – with wins at Illinois, at home against Purdue, and at Michigan and Maryland – they have become dangerous defensively.

MSU smothered the Illini over the final 8:55 after overcoming a 16-point deficit, pulling away to a 79-65 victory with a 17-2 run as Illinois missed its final 19 shots. Against Purdue, a 75-66 win, the Spartans trailed by as many as seven in the first half and bullied the Boilermakers after halftime by pounding the ball in the paint and racing out in transition to wear them down.

At U-M, the Spartans again rallied from an eight-point first-half hole and closed out a 75-62 win with a 9-0 run over the last 4:03. They held the Wolverines to a meager 24 points after halftime on 37.5% shooting and 1-for-10 from 3-point range while forcing eight turnovers that led to 10 points.

Then in Wednesday’s 58-55 grinder at Maryland, MSU’s big men controlled the interior and glass while coming back from a two-point halftime deficit. Tre Holloman’s 3-point fling from beyond halfcourt at the final horn gave the Spartans an emotional game-winner.

But MSU really won it by getting points from all 10 players in its rotation, the 17th time this season that’s happened. It also was the 16th game with each grabbing at least one rebound as well as the 10th time all 10 Spartan regulars did both.

“It’s just the fact that it seems that we didn’t have a star or whatever, but everyone was scoring,” redshirt freshman Jeremy Fears Jr. said Friday. “And we had (collectively) 70, 80 points as a team. So it’s strength in numbers and we just want to be different. And I think that really helps us down the stretch.

“We can rotate guys in, and our second group can be starters anywhere else. Those are all high Division I players. Great, they come in and bring basically a new starting lineup that can compete with anybody.”

MSU ranks fifth in the nation and first in the Big Ten at 35.21 bench points per game. The Spartans also have gotten out and run and are fourth nationally with a league-leading 16.64 fastbreak points a game.

Izzo also has used five different starting lineups, including the most recent one with Fears at point guard, Jase Richardson and Akins on the wings, and Jaxon Kohler and Szymon Zapala in the post. Booker, Tre Holloman and Frankie Fidler all have started multiple games at one point in the season.

“It’s just maybe the rotation is right,” Izzo said. “Maybe I need some firepower coming off the bench. Maybe I need certain guys playing together. And that’s taken half a year through two-thirds of a year to figure out,”

Since Richardson entered the starting lineup, he is playing 31.7 minutes a game in that six-game stretch. The freshman combo guard has averaged 16.8 points with 4.8 rebounds while making 52.2% of his shots and 34.8% of his 3-point attempts as a starter. And despite fighting second-half cramping at Maryland, Izzo sees the correlation of Richardson’s emergence and maximizing MSU’s depth all winter.

“Jase got better. I think he’s fresh right now. He can play more minutes,” Izzo said. “There’s a lot of people out there with guys that have played a lot of minutes that are sucking wind right now. A lot of them.”

Wisconsin arrives on its own hot streak, having won five of its last six and three consecutive road games at Northwestern, Iowa and Purdue. The Badgers also have won their last three trips to Breslin Center, including an 81-66 win a year ago that was part of a season sweep of the Spartans.

The Badgers provide a different challenge, with a potential Big Ten title hanging in the balance. But also a welcomed pressure they all signed up for and hoped to get when they picked MSU.

“I feel like most of us have come to a point this late this season where we kind of want that, we kind of want to be tested,” Kohler said. “We want the best competition, we want to play the best teams in our conference, because of we have accomplished. And although our job isn’t over yet, we are still very excited and ready for any challenge.”

Prediction

MSU 76, Wisconsin 69: Both teams rebound and score the ball, but the Spartans have the defensive edge. And this game comes down to MSU continuing to run teams off the 3-point line, squelching the 38% deep-shooting Wisconsin to secure a Big Ten tournament double-bye and keep Izzo’s quest for a record-tying 11th regular-season title alive heading into the final week.

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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