Over the last four years, the Michigan State Spartans have frustrated fans - and themselves.

These teams, though unique and exciting in many ways, were teams that underwhelmed in ways that this program never expects to. These were mediocre defensive teams (finishing #45, #67, and #42, before an improved #9 last year in Kenpom’s end-of-year defensive ratings), poor rebounding teams (finishing with rebounding margins of +3.2, +4.2, +3.0, and +1.1 the last four years – paltry numbers for this program), teams that failed to execute offensively with increasing aptitude down the stretch of season, and, ultimately, teams with an inability to win conference championships, make Final Fours, or capture Tom Izzo’s elusive second championship.

The program’s best players have, at times, played like their best players - Aaron Henry’s closing run to keep the tournament streak alive, Hoggard and Walker and Hauser at times - but never with consistency, and never with the kind of coalescing team unity that Izzo’s greatest teams leveraged to produce championships and deep NCAA tournament runs.

The question stands: will this year's team be different? And, if so, how and why?

There are a number of internal reasons why I think this team will be different and will perform differently, and there are a number of external reasons as to why those differences may, in fact, produce the kind of banner days that this program has been missing of late.

This team must play with balance and unity; while having star players is great, it can sometimes be a crutch. Tyson Walker performed like a star at times last year, but he never became high-enough volume or high-enough efficiency to really carry the team consistently past the best opponents. His shooting efficiency plateaued or fell-off in every shooting category as a senior, and his usage and scoring volumes, though improved, never generated enough high-efficiency offense around him - in part because of similarly plateauing performances from Hoggard, Akins, and Hall.

The biggest problem with last season’s offense was the pace. The team played shockingly slow basketball, which forced them to execute in the half-court too often, which is simply harder to do. The lack of pace meant that on nights where any two or more guys among the ‘big four’ were not having good shooting nights, offense would prove a slog. This was compounded by the team being a mediocre rebounding team on both ends - fewer possessions for the Spartans and more possessions for the other team are death for slow-paced teams.

This season will be different.

This season, Jeremy Fears, Tre Holloman, Jaden Akins, Coen Carr, Jase Richardson, Kur Teng, Frankie Fidler, and, especially, Xavier Booker will be running hard in transition.

I expect this team to play at a dramatically faster pace than last season’s team did (#309 in overall tempo/pace). That pace of play will ensure more shots, more easy shots (layups and dunks), and more free-throw attempts.

But this pace only works if the team really remembers how to rebound on the defensive glass. Playing Xavier Booker at power forward alongside any of the limited trio of centers is clearly part of Tom Izzo’s plan to take back ownership of the glass. Having Fidler, Carr, and Akins as key wing and forward rebounders will also pay dividends.