Izzo is a Dark Souls boss. Completely unkillable. MSU was the worst they’ve been in 25 years and they still managed to split with Michigan and take a Final Four team to OT in the tournament. Christie and Akins are a pair of absolute ballers. Walker is a perfect fit for their PG needs. They have a ton of bodies to throw out at the 5 and Bingham in particular had a light go on late in the year. I have no problem penciling MSU as a top-3 B1G team for next season.
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Yeah I mean there’s definitely just some stuff that doesn’t pass the sanity test. For a lot of teams, but MSU included.
Torvik has them as 14th on offense and 10th on defense. They were 93rd on offense last year, are losing Henry, Langford and Watts (3 of their top 4 USG players), and are somehow going to rise 80 spots? Even on defense, they finished 43rd last year. Now despite losing Henry, having your top two projected players by minutes being a 6’0 up transfer PG and Joey Hauser (not to mention 33% of minutes to Loyer), they’re supposed to jump to top 10? Okay, sure…
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MSU will be better just by losing Watts and Langford and replacing them with anyone with a pulse. To have an option like Walker over their mess at PG this past year will also help.
MSU will be really really good if they play Christie and Akins and Brooks reasonable minutes. If he still tries to play 11 guys and leans heavily on Walker/Hoggard/Brown/Hauser and a rotating four-man center rotation again they’ll be better but not a factor in the conference race.
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Walker/Akins is going to be a huge upgrade over whatever was happening at PG for MSU this year.
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Those are very good points. Torvik sees Henry, Langford, and Watts leaving as big pluses for their offense since over the course of the season were not very efficient and had high usage (even though Henry improved a ton as the season went on). So Walker is a massive improvement there for them according to projections. Then has a really phenomenal freshman season for Christie, with Hall, Brown, and Hauser being their efficient selves.
The problem with the Torvik projection is it only has Bingham playing 16 MPG and no other Centers even listed. Which we know that is not going to happen. Marble and Sissoko are going to play. And maybe even Kithier. So just by nature that will pull them down.
So a lot remains to be seen on MSU. They very likely will be improving by subtraction with Watts and Lagnford. But the question will be if they can make up for late season Henry which saved their entire season. They also just need to play Marcus Bingham for 25 MPG and that will lead to marked defensive improvement
Overall I can see them as a top 25 projected preseason team. With noting a lot rides on their newcomers
We’ll see if MSU goes for a more efficient plays aka 3 pt shooting as opposed to long range twos. Rocket, Langford, Henry all loved shooting long twos and they’re not efficient in that department unlike UCLA. Henry is a plus defender but Rocket was a minus while Langford was neutral. Expecting Christie and Akins to pick up the defensive slack is asking a lot out of both considering they’re a dynamic offensive player in HS. If MSU shoots more 3s and eliminate long twos, the offense should be better but I don’t think it’s top 20 good
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Big question is how well will Walker play in the B1G schedule. Like you said in the past, up transfer doesn’t always pan out so we’ll see if Walker can do it. Michigan was fortunate that Mike Smith played well as he did this season.
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Better than Watts/Hoggard/Loyer played this season.
BTW, is there any Rocket scuttlebutt? I’m morbidly curious in following his career
From last week:
Louisville was one of his finalists before he committed to MSU IIRC. That seems like it may be the spot.
Agreed, it’d be hard for them to be anything but better. But an 80 spot jump in offensive efficiency with their roster as is? I agree that losing Watts and Langford isn’t bad, and the Walker/Akins combo at PG plus Christie at SG will be an upgrade. But this past year the 14th best offense on Torvik was FSU, Michigan was 9th and Illinois was 8th. Does MSU’s grouping next year seem like it’s going to be anywhere close to FSU, Michigan or Illinois offensively last year? Not to me.
Also this still doesn’t account for losing the impact of losing Henry, who carried MSU down the stretch. As a point of reference before the Feb 2nd loss to Iowa, MSU’s ORTG was 103.1 (which would have put them 141st nationally at seasons end) and rose to 106.8 when the season actually ended. In that same time Henry’s personal ORTG rose from 95.2 to 100.1, or 5 points, while every other MSU rotation player I can find (save Gabe Brown) say their ORTG decrease. Henry carried this team on both ends of the court at the end of last season. Like I said I think they’ll improve, but 80 spots just doesn’t pass any sort of sanity check IMO.
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MSU didn’t shoot many 3’s last year, 260th nationally in 3P Rate, but they also haven only broken the top 150 in 3P rate once since 2015, and haven’t broken the top 100 since 2014. They will probably shoot more 3’s, but I doubt it’s enough to make a noticeable difference.
Top 3 if Washington and Liddell are back? Not happening
it is happening because I say so
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This literally means it’s not happening though lol
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I’m Aaron Henry curious with respect to the Pistons. Specifically because he was operating in such a dysfunctional offense.
“This is our concern, dude.”
The problem is that with the way the schedule has been these last few years, they don’t have to play us until they have already worked out all their nonsense, and injured players are no longer soaking up minutes that would go to players that actually help them win. I wouldn’t mind seeing them in January some years.
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MSU ended up 64 on Kenpom. 12th of the Big Ten teams. Wonder what the biggest ever Kenpom jump is.
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