Most college basketball teams generate certain stats that follow a predictable pattern. It is a pretty basic principle that a handful of players usually 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 Jadin Akins each 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. Akins is currently playing just 67% of the time. 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 opener, 12 different Spartans scored at least two points. No one in green and white played more than 26 minutes. These box scores are not anomalies for the 2024-25 season. This is the norm in East Lansing.

In most seasons, Tom Izzo, or any college coach for that matter, usually tries to tighten the rotation down to around eight players as the season moves on. But with this team, the alternative is working, and it is frankly hard to identify players who should play less as everyone is contributing in different ways.

Following Saturday's win, Izzo said that his team has no problem with the current strategy of minute allocation. He stated that they are a close-knit group that care about each other and who 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 (in) every way, like rebounding, scoring and assists. It just shows how deep we are and what we can do."

Against the Cornhuskers, the Spartan bench outscored Nebraska, 43-22. Against Minnesota, the Spartans bench won the battle 43-30.

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 on Saturday. 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.