College basketball teams are not finished products in November. As he begins his 30th year as Michigan State’s head coach, Tom Izzo knows this quite well. Regardless, there were plenty of good things from MSU’s 81-57 season-opening win over Monmouth on Monday and also a lot to work on.
“Well, a year ago we were 0-1 and (now) we’re 1-0,” Izzo said after the game. “So I guess there’s some positive things here and actually a lot of them.”
The season-opening victory moved Izzo to 79-1 at home during the month of November. The “0-1” from Izzo references that lone loss — last year’s season opener against James Madison.
Just about the lone constant in the loss to JMU and the win against Monmouth was that MSU struggled mightily from 3-point range. The Spartans shot just 3-for-18 from beyond the arc Monday, and went 1-for-20 against the Dukes last season.
“What you saw tonight is a lot of what our team is,” Izzo said. “Except that — trust me when I say this — we are a better team than we shot. You know, I can worry about it or not worry about it, but we are better than we shot.”
One of the main reasons Izzo is not worried about the low percentage from deep is simply because the shot selection was acceptable. He expects natural regression to the mean — his last three teams have been in the top-50 nationally in 3-point percentage.
“I thought our threes that we had — we took 18 and I thought 15 of them were great shots,” Izzo said.
Izzo pointed to Frankie Fidler, Xavier Booker, Jaden Akins and Tre Holloman as guys he’s expecting good production from 3-point land throughout the year. Those four guys went a combined 1-for-10 from deep on Monday. Fidler, Akins and Holloman all shot at least 36% from beyond the arc last season. Booker made exactly a third of his attempts in 2023-2024.
Lumping Akins into guys who struggled to shoot would be unfair — the senior leader went 1-for-4 from 3-point range, but ended up shooting 8-for-12 overall from the field and ended up with 23 points, matching his career-high. It comes as a sigh of relief, as Akins had struggled mightily during MSU’s exhibitions against Northern Michigan and Ferris State.
“One of our biggest fears was the way Jaden had been shooting and playing and Jaden looked every bit the senior he should be and he was,” Izzo said about Akins. “He took the ball to the basket, he got nine rebounds, 23 points, he had five assists, he had one turnover (in) 26 or 27 minutes.
“His running on the break is what we were complaining about and he vowed he was going to do a better job and he did do a better job, so I was really happy for him.”
Akins also shot seven free throws, making six of them. That’s notable because he only shot 23 free throws during the entirety of last season. His career-high for free-throw attempts in one game was just four before Monday.
“That’s marked improvement and that’s going to really help us,” Izzo said about Akins' free-throw shooting.
Akins was able to get a lot of his points inside, which was a theme for Michigan State, as the Spartans outscored the Hawks 48-8 in the paint and ended up being plus-17 in the rebounding department. Izzo didn’t really see it that way against an inferior opponent, mostly annoyed about the number of offensive rebounds Monmouth got (11).
“We’ve gotta rebound better,” Izzo said. “I mean, it was OK … You know, 48 rebounds is a lot of rebounds, but they missed a lot of shots, too.”
Monmouth ended the game with a sub-30% field goal percentage, including 10-straight misses to begin the game. MSU shot just under 50%, including a 58.3% mark during the second half to pull away from the Hawks after they got the game within six points. The Spartans outscored Monmouth 41-23 in the game’s final 17:38.
Alongside Akins’ 15 second-half points was Jase Richardson. The true freshman guard netted six points in the second half and was the only Spartan besides Akins to reach double figures in the game. In his collegiate debut, Richardson scored 10 points on 4-for-5 shooting. He was also 2-for-2 at the free-throw line.
“I thought Jase Richardson for a freshman not only played well, but he played with a purpose,” Izzo said. “He has a great basketball IQ, so when we were struggling there, we put him and Jeremy (Fears Jr.) in together. I thought that really helped us.”
Izzo also said that Richardson just “knows how to play” and that “he has a feel for the game” that is uncommon for a freshman.
Overall, there is a lot to like from MSU’s performance. The poor 3-point shooting does stick out, but according to Izzo, “Scoring 81 points going 3-for-18 (from deep), there’s a positive in there somewhere.”
In addition, Izzo announced that freshman big man Jesse McCulloch will most likely be redshirting, but that it is not a permanent decision yet. McCulloch could play this year if Izzo isn’t happy with how some are playing or if the team becomes hampered by injuries.
"This kid is redshirting because he's good enough, not because he's not good enough," Izzo said about McCulloch. “We think this kid is really going to be worth it.”
Michigan State will be back in action soon, as the Spartans are set to face Niagara in the Breslin Center this coming Thursday, Nov. 7. That game will begin at 8 p.m. Eastern Time and will be televised on the Big Ten Network.
