After about seven months, Michigan State men's basketball is back as the 2024-2025 regular season gets underway Monday night in East Lansing.

The Spartans will open Tom Izzo’s 30th season in charge against the Monmouth Hawks of the Coastal Athletic Association (7 p.m. Eastern Time on Big Ten Plus).

While this 2024-25 MSU team hasn’t played any regular season games yet, the Spartans have gotten some games under their belt. In August, MSU played three games in Spain. Last month, Izzo took his team to the upper peninsula and beat Northern Michigan, 70-53 in exhibition play. Most recently, Michigan State defeated Ferris State on Tuesday, 85-67, to conclude the exhibition slate.

After months of practices and exhibition games, Izzo is excited to get the season going.

“Year one, I was nervous as hell,” Izzo said about the season opener. “Year 30, I’m excited as hell. I just feel like I’m in a good place for me. My team’s getting better. I think we've got some things solidified in some of those exhibition games. I’m looking forward to whether we can put them to good use, but I’m excited.”

Coming out of the recent exhibition matchup against Ferris State, Izzo said that his tinkering with the lineups hurt his team’s momentum throughout the game. Since Tuesday’s game, he’s met with several players to discuss where they fit within the team and rotation.

“There’s one thing these guys are lucky about, if you want the truth – they get communicated to,” Izzo said. “There’s no surprises. I talk to them. I bring them in. I had six guys in (Thursday) just meeting with them about all kinds of things … There’s no guys that are gonna leave here saying I don’t know where I’m at right now. They know where they’re at and they know what they've got to improve on. There’s a couple guys that have to make big improvements and that’ll determine who starts on Monday.”