East Lansing, Mich. – For the second straight game, the Michigan State men’s basketball team will be facing a Big Ten opponent powered by transfers.
And for the second straight contest, the No. 19 Spartans (8-2, 1-0 Big Ten) will be facing a team with a first-year head coach.
Micah Shrewsberry, an associate head coach at Purdue the past two seasons, takes over the reigns in State College and will be leading the Nittany Lions (5-4, 0-1) against MSU, which will be playing its conference home opener at 2 p.m. on Saturday (BTN) after getting past Minnesota on the road on Wednesday, 75-67
While the Nittany Lions don’t boast as many transfers as the Golden Gophers, having eight on their roster is a pretty significant injection of new talent in this day and age of transfer portal madness.
Penn State lost its Big Ten opener to Ohio State, 76-64, on Dec. 5 before bouncing back with a 74-54 non-conference win over Wagner on Wednesday night.
“I think Micah’s done a great job,’’ MSU head coach Tom Izzo said. “He’s a new coach in the league but he was at Purdue, as an assistant, he was, of course, at the (Boston) Celtics, so he’s worked with two great coaches, if you ask me, in Brad Stevens and of course Matt (Painter) at Purdue. So he runs a lot of good stuff. We’re concerned because there’s a lot of different coverages.’’
Penn State is led by junior forward Seth Lundy, who is averaging 14.3 points per game. Lundy is one of four PSU players averaging 10 or more points per game for a program that enters Saturday afternoon with just nine wins in 50 meetings with MSU.
Senior guard Sam Sessoms, a Binghamton transfer, comes off the bench to add 13.4 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.8 assist per contest, while senior guard Jalen Pickett, who previously played at Siena, contributes 11.8 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists per contest.
“He can shoot the ball but he’s a very great bodied basketball player, strong,’’ Izzo said of Pickett. “He can get you on his hip and he’s strong enough to keep you off and that’s a problem, especially when he gets a small guard (on him), one of smaller guards.
“He can score from a lot of different places. He’s got a great mid-range game and a good 3-point shooting game but I think it’s his penetration, his muscle moves that he does ( that makes him a challenging player to guard.)’’
Graduate senior forward John Harrar rounds out PSU’s quartet of double-figure scorers at 10.9 points and a team-leading 10.6 rebounds a game.
Penn State enters Saturday afternoon’s contest averaging 67.7 points a game, while giving up just 64.3 points per game.
Additionally, the Lions are shooting well as a team at 45.7 a game, hitting 8.3 3-pointers a game.
“We’re going to be in a situation now where it’s another kind of new team,’’ Izzo said. “(What) people don’t realize is they’ve got a lot of players back. Lundy’s back, (senior guard Myles) Dread is back, Harrar’s back and he’s playing really well, and Sessoms, so that’s four guys that have been in there. Now, they have sprinkled in some transfers but four guys that have been there. We’re running into teams right now that are old, a good old but not a bad old.’’
The Spartans, who have been guided by a strong defensive posture - which has them No. 5 in the Big Ten in scoring defense, No. 2 in field goal percentage defense, No. 3 in 3-point field goal percentage defense and No. 1 in blocked shots – also rely on balanced scoring to average 73.4 points a contest.
Defensively, the Spartans are giving up just 63.9 points a game, but as it has been all season so far, will need to improve on reducing its 15.4 turnovers a game.
Senior forward Gabe Brown leads the team with 13.1 points per game and has scored in double figures in nine of 10 games.
Senior forward Marcus Bingham is second at 10.1 points per game and tops the Spartans in rebounding at 7.1 per contest. Bingham also contributes three blocks per game.
MSU has additional firepower coming from junior forward Malik Hall, who’s scoring 9.7 points a game, while freshman guard Max Christie is averaging 8.9 points and 3.3 rebounds.
Junior forward Julius Marble adds 5.9 points and 3.2 rebounds and redshirt senior forward Joey Hauser contributes 6.1 points and 6.1 rebounds a game. Hauser is coming off his best game of the season at Minnesota and the Spartans would benefit greatly if he is able to achieve a level of consistency. He is likely to get the start at power forward as Izzo tries to get him into a rhythm, but Malik Hall routinely plays more minutes at power forward than Hauser although doing it while coming off the bench.
Junior guard Tyson Walker, a Northeastern transfer, is averaging 6.7 points and leads the team in assists at 4.7, while sophomore backcourt mate A.J. Hoggard is averaging 6.2 points, 4.3 assists and 2.1 rebounds a contest.
Walker has averaged 9.3 points and 6.3 assists per game in MSU’s last three contests, all wins, and is showing signs of improvement,.
"Tyson Walker is getting better each and every game, making plays," Izzo said. "Other than the four turnovers (on Wednesday against Minnesota where he had 15 points, five rebounds and three assists), I thought he had a hell of a game."