It’s not a huge sample size, but, after seven games, we are starting to see the various components that will make up the foundation for the Michigan State men's basketball team's 2023-2024 season.

Some of it — Tyson Walker, Jeremy Fears Jr., Carson Cooper and certainly the defense —is very encouraging. Other parts — the 3-point/free-throw shooting, A.J. Hoggard’s early play, Xavier Booker’s potential impact — are trending toward the somewhat serious level of concern territory.

With MSU’s early conference play set to kick off this week at home against Wisconsin on Tuesday, followed by a road meeting with red-hot Nebraska the following Sunday, the Spartans had a full week of practice to find some answers.

So let’s dive in.

Let’s start with the most positive aspect of this team, the defense. Since Xavier Tillman’s departure after the 2019-2020 season where Michigan State's defense finished 13th overall in the country, MSU has GREATLY struggled on that side of the ball.

In the three-year span since his departure, Michigan State has finished, on average, as the 51st best team in the country defensively. For a program that has prided itself on making life hell for opposing offenses, it had to be a three-year stretch that made the staff ill. And while the offense for this team is VERY much a work in progress (more on this later), the defense has been rock solid to start the year, currently ranking seventh overall, according to kenpom.com, after finishing last year at 42nd.

So what’s been the biggest change for a roster that has mostly been kept intact?

The answer is multi-faceted. For starters, Joey Hauser has been replaced by Malik Hall at the power forward spot. And for everything that Hauser was for this team offensively last year (the ripple effects of missing his spacing presence are having deep effects on MSU’s offense), no one is going to mistake him for a plus-defender. Did he become serviceable on that end his senior year? Absolutely. Is Hall a vastly more diverse and physical defender? Yes, 100%.

The second part of the equation is the minute split at the center position. Last year, Mady Sissoko and Jaxon Kohler played over 32 minutes per game (MPG) at the center position. While team defense is certainly a collective effort, if you don’t have the ability to defend ball screens and protect the paint in the front-court, it’s impossible to have a really good defense. In 2019-2020, Tillman’s final year, MSU’s 2-point field goal defense was 10th in the country, allowing 43.4%. Over the next three years MSU’s 2-point field goal defense fell to an average of 112th in the country (48.4% allowed), and the Spartans finished last year at 102nd, allowing 48.7% of shots inside the arc.