Michigan State's head men's basketball coach Tom Izzo wrapped up the 2022-23 season with an end-of-season press conference in East Lansing last week to highlight the many positives of the future of MSU basketball, while also wrapping up the previous basketball season.
"All in all, under the circumstances, I think it was a very good season," Izzo said about the 2022-2023 season. "Never ends the way you want unless you win it all, but I can't say that, that was the number one objective this year"
With the 2022-2023 season now over, there were plenty of positive moments throughout the season, including the early season double-overtime win against Kentucky, the nail-biting finish against Villanova at the Breslin Center that produced maybe the play of the non-conference slate for the Spartans via a poster from guard Jaden Akins, the emotional home victory over ranked Indiana, and of course, the run to the Sweet Sixteen.
The Spartans left fans on the edge of our seats the entire 2022-23 season. In a year where injuries made a huge impact early, not many people expected much from this roster and consistency often escaped the team, the Spartans still ended up producing a second weekend NCAA Tournament run.
MSU fought through the ups and downs, and had a chance to really make a mark on this campaign,
"Especially early, when we had the injuries, it was about surviving the times we had to survive, and really realizing at the end just how close we were to maybe doing something," Izzo said. "Not because of the way it ended, but if you look back at a couple of games I thought we should've won, could've one, that's how fragile a season is. It's, as they say, a game of inches, or in mine, a game of a point."
With the focus now onto the 2023-2024 season, there are extremely high expectations for this version of the Michigan State men's basketball squad. The Spartans return every contributing player on the 2022-23 roster minus sharpshooter Joey Hauser (most likely), who ripped the nets this previous season to a tune of 46% from 3-point range.
While Hauser's expected departure is a big loss for the Spartans, the team returns several scholarship players: Tyson Walker, A.J. Hoggard, Jaden Akins (Akins could still declare for the NBA Draft, as Izzo alluded to some of his player potentially doing so) and Tre Hollomon in the back-court, and Malik Hall, Mady Sissoko, Jaxon Kohler and Carson Cooper in the front-court.
MSU also brings in the fifth-ranked recruiting class in the country. The 2023 recruiting class is highlighted by five-star power forward Xavier Booker, four-star point guard Jeremy Fears Jr., four-star forward Coen Carr and four-star guard/forward Gehrig Normand.
Booker comes into East Lansing as the top-ranked power forward in the 2023 class and ranked as the ninth overall player in the 2023 class. Booker will be one of the Spartans more versatile players on the roster next season, as he displays exceptional ball handling skills, a smooth jump shot and the ability to play at and above the rim. The left-hander might take some time to get his feet wet, but is thought to have sky-high potential.
As for Fears, he comes into East Lansing as the No. 8 point guard in the country and the 26th overall player in the class. Fears has a great feel of the game, showing outstanding court vision, great tenacity on the defensive end of the floor and never allowing the opposition to speed him up.
Fears' top notch competitive spirit will challenge the returning point guards in what should make each player better going into next season. Izzo commented on the addition of Fears and the potential of his playing time next season by saying he basically expects to play multiple point guards at a time with Fears now joining the program, Izzo also suggested that the addition of Fears will help the Spartans get their transition game back again, which was not typically up to the Michigan State standard in the 2022-23 season as MSU ranked 306th in adjusted tempo, according to Barttorvik.com.
Meanwhile, Carr is an incredible above the rim athlete who often makes highlight-reel plays, and Normand is a good shooter who also has strong athleticism, and like Carr, is a lob threat.
With the Spartans returning Walker and Hall to an already stacked roster, many media pundits have Michigan State somewhere in the top-10 going into next season, with Barttorvik.com ranking the Spartans third in its 2023-2024 projections.
With Walker and Hall returning for a fifth and final season of college eligibility, Izzo is very high on his Spartans next season.
"With Tyson (Walker) coming back, and Malik (Hall) coming back, we've got something to celebrate," Izzo said. "This day and age, you don't who's coming back ... In general we should have a pretty solid group coming back with a lot of great recruits coming in. And you put those two things together, and (there's) a lot of optimism for next season."
Izzo also mentioned that Hall had "minor" offseason foot injury. Hall dealt with a stress fracture in his left foot for much of the 2022-2023 season.
The Spartans will have a few tests early on against Duke at the Champions Classic and against Arizona on Thanksgiving Day, which were mentioned by Izzo at the press conference last week.
Both Duke and Arizona should be ranked somewhere in the top-10 or top-15, with Duke getting a lot of early votes to be the top-ranked team going into the 2023-2024 season.
The roster will be loaded and the expectations will be high in East Lansing next season, but as Izzo said after the Ohio State win on Feb. 12, "I built the monster, I'm just trying to feed the damn thing."
There will be plenty of opportunities for the Spartans to "feed" more banners into the Breslin Center rafters next season.