The Michigan State men's basketball team is staring right in the face of a 1-4 start to Big Ten play. To avoid it, the Spartans have to beat top-10-ranked Illinois on the road.

Head coach Tom Izzo and his team don’t have the momentum heading into Thursday’s matchup. The Spartans are coming off of a blowout road loss against Northwestern. They allowed 88 points to the Wildcats and turned the ball over 13 times.

“I looked at the film on Sunday and didn’t feel any different than I did there,” Izzo said on Tuesday about the Northwestern loss. “I’m disappointed in how we guarded, the number of turnovers we had in about a six-minute span before the first half and we never rebounded from that. We were up four (points) and all of a sudden we’re down 14. And it happened quickly. Give them some credit. They made shots. We didn’t make shots and that’s college basketball right now. We did not defend or rebound like we should or could.”

While 13 turnovers isn’t an astronomical amount and turnovers haven’t been a major issue yet for the Spartans this season, they were “timely” and “costly” when they happened on Sunday night.

Michigan State’s trip to Illinois will be its third true road game of the season. The Spartans are currently 0-2 in true road games and it won’t get any easier with the visit to Champaign looming.

One of the major challenges is the situation regarding Illinois guard Terrence Shannon Jr. Shannon is accused of raping an adult female on Sept. 8 in the basement of a Lawrence, Kansas bar. Shannon was in Lawrence for the Fighting Illini’s football game against Kansas that weekend.

Since the alleged incident, Shannon has been formally charged with rape and was suspended from all team activities on Dec. 28. On Monday, he pursued a temporary restraining order against the university so he could be reinstated to the team. In response, the University of Illinois filed a notice of removal to have the case removed from Champaign County Court and have it instead heard before the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois. At the time of publishing, it is unknown if Shannon will play on Thursday night.

“A lot of confusion right now,” Izzo said about playing Illinois. “They played last Friday without Shannon. I don’t know what the articles say now, maybe he’ll play, maybe he won’t play. I have no clue. But they’ve had five, six days to prepare. I’m sure they’ll do some different things now that, number one, if he doesn’t play, they’ll have time to tweak some things and if he does play, they’ll have time to do whatever they got to do. It’s a very good team. I think it’s the most talented team in the league. They have great guard play.”

With that all said, it seems unlikely that Shannon will be available on Thursday. The notice of removal will likely slow down the process of deciding on the restraining order.

Michigan State is preparing accordingly, but it is a challenge for the coaching staff and players. Shannon is a big part of the Illinois team because he averages 21.7 points per game and he has played in 11 of the 14 games so far this season.

“I would say it’s tough to prepare but in the Big Ten you never know what can happen,” Michigan State guard Jaden Akins said about what it’s like to prepare not knowing if Shannon will play. “You just gotta be ready for whatever. We’ve been in the tournament when you have one-day or two-day prep, so I feel like we got a good amount of time to prepare for them.”

On top of that, Illinois will have the rest advantage over Michigan State. The Fighting Illini haven’t played since Friday (an 83-78 loss to Purdue), while the Spartans played on Sunday. Illinois will have two extra days of rest ahead of Thursday’s game.

“It’s a major challenge especially in a shortened period of time,” Izzo said about preparing for Shannon and the shorter rest. “They’ve had since Friday. We’ve had since Sunday. But that’s another issue that’s getting a little dicey on these TV games. We always wanted two days (of) prep, but we don’t ever look at how many days an opponent gets.

“...Whether (Shannon) plays or not, we think there’s going to be a lot of changes for them because they’ve had the chance to spend five days and especially a weekend … They don’t have school this week. So we think there’s going to be a lot of changes. How do you plan for Shannon? He’s one of the great players in our league. Maybe even he’s having an MVP (season) the way he was playing. I think something will be determined (regarding Shannon’s status) by (Wednesday). So, hell, we’ll have a whole day to make those changes.”

On the court, Illinois might be a mismatch for the Spartans size wise, especially at the guard position. Shannon is 6-foot-6, guard/forward Luke Goode is 6-foot-7 and Justin Harmon is 6-foot-4. Goode, Harmon and Shannon are Illinois’ top-three guards based on minutes played per game.

“That’s probably our number one issue, their perimeter is big,” Izzo said. “…They’ve got size over us. They rebound the ball pretty well.

“I think we gotta get our running game going. I think we have to take advantage of that. We think we've got to get more movement on our offense, although the offensive stats are pretty good. Defensively, we’re working on a lot of things, I’ll just say that. We’re working on a lot of different things to try to do a better job with smaller guards and that has been a little bit of a challenge.”

Michigan State is no stranger to playing undersized at the guard position.

“Try to use your leverage as best as possible,” Akins said when asked what to do when you are undersized. “If they charge at you, try to play to your advantages, be quicker and lower than them. Just stand your ground and do the best you can.”

Not only do the Illini's guards present a challenge for the Spartans, but the big men do as well. Quincy Guerrier is “one of the elite offensive rebounders” as he averaged 7.6 rebounds per game. The 6-foot-10 Coleman Hawkins also is one of Illinois’ best rebounders. Dain Dainja had one of his best games in his college career last season against the Spartans. He scored 20 points and grabbed seven boards in the only meeting between the two teams.

Rebounding will be emphasized on Thursday night and for Michigan State, that starts with being even more physical down low.

“One of the big things is he wants us to stop playing as timid and just keep having that energy and stop playing as soft,” Michigan State center Carson Cooper said. “So for us, physicality and just having energy and having fun with each other is probably what’s gonna help us.”

The visit to Illinois certainly won’t be easy for the Spartans. A win is a must if they don’t want to dig themselves in a 1-4 hole in the first five Big Ten games of the season.

“Obviously, we’re 1-3 in conference play and it could get bad quick,” Cooper said. “So for us, we can get even by next week. So for us to win this next one and then have a home game with some momentum coming into Sunday is gonna be big for us. Just being able to win both and win the big one on the road first is mandatory.”

Despite the challenges, Izzo remains high on his team, while recognizing that the Spartans aren’t a great team quite yet.

“We got a good team,” Izzo said. “We’re not a great team yet because we’ve had to overcome some things. We haven’t done a couple things as well as I’d like to do them. But it’s a good basketball team. If we could just go on another run. We’re good enough to go on a run.”

Discuss this article in our premium forums by clicking here.

You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

For video content, including our Red Cedar Radar podcast, find us on YouTube and consider subscribing.