Most college basketball teams generate certain stats that follow a predictable pattern. It is a pretty basic principle that a handful of players using wind up playing the majority of the minutes.
Take last year's Michigan State basketball team, for example. Tyson Walker, A.J. Hoggard, Malik Hall, and Jaden Akins played between 70% and 80% of the minutes for the season. In 2022-23, Walker and Joey Hauser both played over 80% of the minutes.
But this year's version of the Michigan State Spartans team is built a bit differently. Jaden Akins is currently playing just 67% of the minutes. No other player is over 55%.
In Saturday's rout of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, 10 different Spartans scored and six of them scored at least eight points. No Spartan played more than 24 minutes.
On Wednesday night in Minneapolis in the Big Ten openers, 12 different Spartans scored at least two points. No one in green and white played more than 26 minutes. These box scores are anomalies for the 2024-25 season. This is the norm in East Lansing.
In most seasons, Coach Izzo, or any college coach for that matter, will likely try to tighten the rotation down to around eight players. But with this team it is working, and it is frankly hard to identify someone who should play less. Everyone is contributing if different ways.
When Izzo was asked about the rotation following Saturday's win, he said that this team has no problem with the minute allocation. He stated that they are a close-knit group that care about each other and that like winning more than individual stats. His players echoed their coach's sentiments.
"I never really played with this big of a rotation, but it's kind of great," said redshirt freshman point guard Jeremey Fears following the game. "You stay fresh... There's no drop off. And that's why I think our bench points (are so high). Our bench guys are coming in and doing a phenomenal job and just helping us at every way, like rebounding, scoring and assists. It just shows that how deep we are and what we can do."
Against the Corn Huskers, the Spartan bench outscored Nebraska, 43-to-22. Against Minnesota, the Spartans bench won the battle 43-to-30. The Spartan bench is a weapon.
One of the primary weapons off the bench is freshman guard Jase Richardson, who scored 16 points in just 15 minutes. Akins was the only player on either team to score more points on Saturday. Richardson echoed many of the same comments from his coach and his point guard.
"It's so fun just to have so many people contribute to a game like we did today," Richardson said. "It's amazing to play with. We have a lot of unselfish guys that give up good looks for great looks. So it's definitely fun to play with."
"I mean, we got a lot of guys that can do a lot of things," Richardson continued. "So any given time, we can mix the lineups up. If somebody gets tired, we got two, three more people to come in for them. So I feel like it's good and our advantage."
With only one basketball and 200 total minutes to go around, it is to be expected that sometimes players might wish they played more minutes. Izzo mentioned that both Fears and Jaxon Kohler pleaded to be left in the game late. Fears wanted to try to get 10 assists while Kohler was two points shy of a double-double.
On some other teams, this kind of debate could lead to problems. That does not seem to be the case for this Spartan team. When asked for his point of view on this exchange, Richardson clearly was not concerned. In fact, we thought it was a positive.
"My point of view?" he asked. "That's a great thing, especially when guys want to get assists or rebounds to get a double-double. I feel like for us that's an unselfish, selfish way of winning games."
Fears also seems to have no concern over sharing the basketball.
"I think our chemistry is like none other," he said. "We're together. Everyone's together. (There are) no problems. We are all happy and want each other to succeed."
With the holiday break looming, the Spartans have just three games on the schedule over the next 28 days. Michigan State will play three mid major opponents for the remainder of the month before Big Ten play resumes at Ohio State on Jan. 3.
During the break, the Spartans will have the chance to work on themselves and to tighten some screws. While the Spartans were dominate on Saturday, larger challenges loom in the New Year. This teams still has room for improvement. Coach Izzo already can think of a few things his team can work on.
"The only bad stat that I have (from today) is 17 turnovers," Izzo said. "Sometimes that's going to happen when you play more people. There's not a real good feel for each other yet as we (are only a) third of the way through the season.
"I'd like to see us defensively get more solid," he continued. "(Specifically on) ball screen defense. Sometimes our bigs are a little slow getting up there. We got to do a better job of that."
Izzo also mentioned that he wanted to explore different lineups and player combinations. For example, he would like to drill Coen Carr at the "four" (the power forward position) in so-called "small ball" lineups. But there was one thing that Izzo wanted to see more than anything else.
"Consistency is what I want to see now," he said. "Can we can we stay consistent? Can we stay level headed? Can we keep working, or do we let the outside world get us? It will be a cold day in hell before I let that happen this year."
As for Fears, when he was asked what he planned to work on over the next few weeks, he also gave a clear and quick answer.
"Communication," he said. "I think we have good communication right now. I don't think it's great yet. Obviously communication can clear up a lot of things. So I would just say communication and communicating with each others."
If Michigan State can continue to shoot, pass, defend, run, and rebound with more consistency in the new year, the Spartans will be a team that people will be talking about in East Lansing, in Big Ten country, and maybe beyond.
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