No. 4 Michigan State opens its 2023-2024 basketball season on Monday night against a James Madison team that is one of the favorites to win the Sun Belt Conference. Last year, the Dukes finished 22-11 and fourth place in the Sun Belt, so the team may pose a better challenge to Michigan State than many fans anticipate.
Tom Izzo, heading into his 29th season at the helm in East Lansing, knows that James Madison is no slouch and his team is preparing accordingly.
“JMU is good,” Izzo said on Thursday. “They’re picked to win that league. I watched them last year and they got (five) more transfers in. I’ll be honest with you, they’re a good basketball team. They’re better than a lot of teams we’ve played. Probably not a good game for the opener. And that’ll be something else I’m gonna look at as years come.”
The Dukes lost three starters from last year’s 22-win squad, but head coach Mark Byington landed five transfers to help fill the void left by the departed starters.
“A lot of ball screens, some pressure defense, they’ll get into some people, they rebound the ball decently,” Izzo said when asked about what James Madison does well. “They’ve shot the ball pretty well and they’ve got a couple of new guys that really shoot the ball well. They’re a good team.”
A player on Michigan State that is familiar with James Madison is graduate senior guard Tyson Walker. When Walker was at Northeastern for two seasons, James Madison was in the same conference (Colonial Athletic Association). Walker’s Northeastern teams went 3-1 against James Madison in his two seasons with the Huskies. In Walker’s last game against James Madison, he put up 30 points against the Dukes.
Walker knows that James Madison is a team that can give MSU a game if the Spartans start off slow like they did in the exhibition game against Tennessee.
“It helped us understand that we can’t start off slow like that, dig ourselves into a hole,” Walker said about what the team learned against Tennessee. “It’s definitely going to help Monday. They’re a well-coached team, veteran team so just knowing we can’t make mistakes against them, too.”
This season will be Walker’s final season in college basketball. He came back to Michigan State to leave a winning legacy and it starts on Monday night.
“Definitely want to win,” Walker said when asked about the legacy he wants to leave. “There’s no legacy if you don’t win, so that’s the first thing. Whatever people want to call me after that, then they can, but I gotta win.”
As mentioned, James Madison has five transfers on the roster, which may seem like a lot, but in the grand scope of college basketball in today's day and age, it’s the new normal. As a result, Izzo has had to watch a lot of film to learn what the different transfers bring to the table.
“It’s really going to be unique here these first five, six, seven games because I was making the point that I was watching film yesterday and some of these teams have three different transfers,” Izzo said. “So you’re watching film, then you have to watch film on the team they played for last year, then you have to watch film on the team they played for the year before. Pretty soon, I’m gonna be watching film coming out of the birth canal. It’s ridiculous. But it’s gonna create a little bit of problems for us along with everybody else. But that’s the hardest thing.
“The other thing we’re doing is we’re playing our freshmen. Where some teams are playing fourth- and fifth-year guys who have a better understanding. So (Xavier) Book(er) right now, he’s gotta pick up things. It’s hard for those freshmen to pick things up especially when you’re changing every three days like the next two weeks will be. A little more difficult when you’re gonna play four freshmen.”
The rotation is also a big question heading into the season. Fans got a sneak peek in the two exhibition games, versus Hillsdale and Tennessee, respectively, that Michigan State can go 11 or 12 players deep. Forward Xavier Booker, one of the key freshmen that is expected to contribute, didn’t have as many minutes as expected against the Volunteers, but Izzo said that he was a “little late for something,” which caused him not play as many minutes as he normally would have played.
“The playing rotation will be determined in the next couple days because if these freshmen pick things up, they’re gonna play more and we’re gonna keep guys fresher,” Izzo said last week. “And if they don’t, then we’re gonna have to play a little different for a while. Trying to play three freshmen for sure a lot and get some rotation in there. I’d like to see it that way. I’d like to see everybody under 30 minutes, but playing hard as hell. Maybe even under 27 minutes like it was in (2005). So we’re looking at all those things, but some of it will be determined by practice and how fast those freshmen come along.”
There will be some unique challenges that Izzo will face this season. The balance between veteran players and talented freshmen is an exciting prospect, along with the usual tough schedule that the Spartans will face. As expected, Izzo is looking forward to getting the season underway.
“I’ve had 28 of these (seasons),” Izzo said. “Every one I look forward to the season. I mean, even years when we’re not picked quite as high, I’m looking forward to the season because we’ve gone to a Final Four as a seven-seed and a one-seed. So that part, it’s always exciting to get ready for the season. The blend of having veterans and rookies has been fun, but as we get into this right now, it gets a little more frustrating because they don’t pick up everything. It’s gonna be challenging for everybody these first couple weeks, but I’m looking forward to it.”
