Strength (and production) in numbers: Depth, versatility driving Michigan State basketball

Posted by author January 24, 2025 Basketball

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EAST LANSING — For the past few years, Tom Izzo’s seemingly reluctant approach to using the transfer portal rankled some Michigan State basketball fans.

Even when he dipped into it over the summer, bringing in Frankie Fidler and Szymon Zapala from smaller Division I schools, there remained some fan frustration that he didn’t land a big-named transfer from a powerhouse program. Or that the Hall of Fame coach remained too loyal to his own recruits and did not overrecruit them, perhaps pushing them into the portal.

Those voices have been awfully quiet lately. (Unless they’re opening their mouths to admit they were wrong.)-

Izzo has the Spartans sitting at 16-2 overall and atop the Big Ten standings at 7-0. They have won 11 straight and are back into the top 10 of the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll, up to No. 8 this week as they prepare to face Rutgers (10-9, 3-5) on Saturday (1:30 p.m., CBS) at Madison Square Garden in New York.

And, as it turns out, Izzo might have assembled his most matchup-proof group in years — if not ever.

“I think we can go small. We can go big if we have to go big. And that’s always beneficial in some way, shape or form,” Izzo said Wednesday. “But I think we’re getting to the point now where our guys are comfortable with it, and they understand that with certain lineups, we’re gonna have to play certain people.”

In Sunday’s 80-78 win over No. 17 Illinois, that meant more of Xavier Booker early and to start the second half and less of Zapala, the 7-foot senior who has surprisingly started every game this season after his transfer in from Longwood. But by the end of the tight game, it was Coen Carr on the wing and Omaha transfer Fidler manning the four-spot — a new wrinkle — as part of MSU’s close-out group in much of the final two minutes.

“It wasn’t for punishment for anybody,” Izzo said of his halftime lineup adjustments. “It was just we felt that that was the best matchup, and those guys might have been playing the best.”

The versatility the Spartans have displayed at both ends of the court is what has allowed Izzo to use varying combinations depending on the opponent. It also is why his “strength in numbers” belief with this squad allows him to continue to deploy a 10-man rotation deep into January, with junior center Carson Cooper’s 14.4 minutes per game the fewest and senior guard Jaden Akins’ 26.3 the most among that group.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of mismatches,” Akins said after practice Wednesday. “We got a lot of different type of guys that we can play and a lot of different lineups we can play. Defensively and offensively. So we can just play any way a team wants to play.”

MSU hasn’t lost in the two months since junior guard Tre Holloman joined the starting lineup before the overtime win over North Carolina in the Maui Invitational on Nov. 27. Izzo has gone to a three-guard starting group, with Akins shifting back to the wing after opening the year at shooting guard and redshirt freshman Jeremy Fears Jr. running point. He also brings freshman Jase Richardson off the bench to log minutes at both guard spots, while the 6-7 Fidler at times has logged minutes at shooting guard when Izzo needs a bigger presence.

The addition of Zapala to an already established post group gives the Spartans a true center option, while Kohler’s emergence playing small forward has been a revelation to unlock some of these combinations. The 6-9 junior, who displaced the sophomore Booker from the starting lineup after three games, has been MSU’s best rebounder and has the ability to step out and hit jumpers. Booker and Cooper give Izzo offensive and defensive options on the block as well.

Carr’s growth in performance as a sophomore, and his springy athleticism, allows him to shift between small forward in an undersized lineup or to the wing when Izzo wants to get out and run. And with Fidler shaking a shooting slump and beginning to emerge as an option at forward with his knack to rebound and draw fouls, that opens up more options for Izzo to mix-and-match depending on the opponents’ size and strengths.

“We got a lot of guys who can guard. We can switch one through four,” Booker said Sunday. “We got a lot of versatile guys. I mean, that’s the main strength with our team. We just got a lot of guys who can come off the bench and do anything. If a guy’s not playing well, we got another guy right back out there who can go on the floor and produce the same way that a starter would.”

With that deep group has come deep production. Eight different Spartans have led the team in scoring in a game so far, and seven have led in rebounds. Akins leads with 13.9 points per game, but his nine rotation mates each score between 4.5 and 9.2 a game. Kohler grabs a team-best 7.9 rebounds, but the other seven other regulars each snag between 2.5 and 4.8 boards a game.

“Any guy can get off any night,” Booker said. “It’s great to see which guy is gonna go off any night. We just got a very deep team. We got a lot of guys who go on the floor and produce on any given night.”

Passing also is a strength for this team, with the Spartans’ 18.3 assists per game ranking 10th in the nation. And it goes beyond the point guard spot with Fears (6.3 assists per game to rank third in the Big Ten), Holloman (3.8) and Richardson (1.8), who have pushed the pace and have MSU second in the country in fastbreak points at 18.44 a game. The big-to-big passing with Kohler, Zapala, Cooper and Booker and their ability to also swing the ball around the perimeter have been major contributing factors in being establish a scoring presence in the halfcourt. MSU has scored at least 40 points in the paint in three of its past four wins as teams have tried to slow down their break.

Perhaps most importantly: The Spartans appear to be fully on board with Izzo’s all-hands approach.

“We all got a common goal. We want to win,” Akins said. “So whatever that looks like and whatever we need to do to do that, we’re gonna keep doing that. Nobody has an agenda or is selfish with it. We all want to see each other win.”

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

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