October 29, 2024: Michigan State finished its last preseason tuneup against the Ferris State Bulldogs at the Breslin Center with a 85-67 victory. There were a lot of things to like about what we saw and a few negative aspects to the team. On the positive side we saw Frankie Fidler display what looks to be his scoring acumen. The freshmen tandem guards of Kur Teng and Jase Richardson were fantastic and will be tough for Izzo to keep off the floor. Coen Carr brought a new level to his game as did ...
Oct 30, 2024•57 min•Ep. 233
October 27, 2024: Michigan State takes on Ferris State for its only exhibition game played at the Breslin Center this season. Ferris is a perennial power int he GLIAC where Head Coach Andy Bronkema has led the Bulldogs to 4 regular season titles, 7 NCAA tournament appearances, and one national title in only 11 years. Make no mistake, Ferris will provide a good warm up challenge for the Spartans. However, this shouldn't be a game that MSU struggles so hopefully we will learn some things about the...
Oct 28, 2024•59 min•Ep. 232
October 23, 2024: Michigan State received its second high school commitment yesterday with the announcement of 6'8" 210 pound Cam Ward from Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Ward joins fellow 4* Jordan Scott who committed recently and is also from the East coast. Ward brings a lot to the table for MSU both physically and in terms of skills. He has plus wing span of over 7' and a game that includes a good handle, scoring, and rebounding. What the coaching staff likes most, however, is his tenacity and wi...
Oct 23, 2024•37 min•Ep. 230
October 21, 2024: Once again, we have Purdue as the expected Big Ten champion this year. However, this season Painter's crew will have to do it without two time national player of the year Zach Edey. We expect that the season's success or 'failure' will largely come down to the play of point guard Braden Smith. Smith showed another gear last year with not only his shooting but also his composure. Teams were much less successful rattling the Sophomore in 2023-24 with pressure. This year's team ha...
Oct 21, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 228
October 17, 2024: Earlier last season we thought Mike Woodson was a coach who wouldn't be returning. Despite the underwhelming results with what Indiana has brought to the court, the Hoosiers have doubled down on Woodson by spending big in the portal to bring some big names to Bloomington. Most notably, is Oumar Ballo from Arizona. The 7 footer is rumored to have received over $1 million and there are big expectations for what he can do in the league. Although it pains us to put both Indiana sch...
Oct 17, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 227
October 14, 2024: There's no question that last season was a disappointing year for fourth year head coach, Mick Cronin, as the Bruins had a losing record and missed the NCAA Tournament. The young team struggled especially on the offensive side ranking a dismal #152 in Division 1. But this year offers a lot of promise as Cronin has gone to the portal and brought in a lot of promising transfers. Also, five of their top 8 scorers last year are back and they expect to be instantly competitive in th...
Oct 14, 2024•44 min•Ep. 226
October 13, 2024: Michigan State visited Marquette, MI today to take on Tom Izzo's alma mater, Northern Michigan, in a rare early preseason exhibition game. Another signature event scheduled by the Spartans as they played in the Superior Dome where Izzo's number was retired earlier. As for the game, despite being one of the better teams in the D2 GLIAC, NMU wasn't able to really put up much resistance falling to the Spartans 70-53. MSU didn't look too sharp but did some things well especially on...
Oct 13, 2024•52 min•Ep. 229
October 11, 2024: Thursday evening, Virginia 4* high school recruit, Jordan Scott, committed to Michigan State. Scott is a 6'7" wing who ranks inside the top 75 in most recruiting rankings. He is talented and versatile where he has played positions 1-5 on his AAU team in the UnderArmor circuit. Scott is a winner and comes from great college basketball pedigree as both his parents played high level D1 basketball. The Spartans head to Marquette, MI to take on head coach Tom Izzo's alma mater, the ...
Oct 11, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 225
October 9, 2024: Head coach, Brad Underwood, just had his most successful season at Illinois leading the Illini to a Big Ten Tournament championship, second place in the Big Ten regular season, and a trip to the Elite 8. Although it seems Underwood has struggled to maintain a core of recruits to stick around Champaign more than a few years, he has had a number of successful years of play. Last year the Illini were carried by the all everything Terrance Shannon. The season for Illinois looked to ...
Oct 09, 2024•53 min•Ep. 224
October 7, 2024: Ohio State finally parted ways with Chris Holtman last season after many years of underperformance. There's definitely patience at a football school like Ohio State but it isn't unlimited. A general lack of success and missing the tournament multiple years in a row led to his dismissal. Surprisingly, the Buckeyes ended up hiring interim coach, Jake Diebler, who had quite a bit of success to close out the Big Ten season last year. But he remains an unknown quantity in the coachin...
Oct 07, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 222
October 3, 2024: The expressions "dumpster fire, clown show, apocalypse" to describe last year's season for the Wolverines probably all work. Michigan had their worst finish in 60 years and a number of really weird circumstances. Head coach Juwan Howard started the season recovering from a heart surgery and while serving as an assistant coach got tossed from a game. Howard got into some sort of altercation with the team's strength and conditioning coach leading to him leaving the school. Point g...
Oct 03, 2024•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 223
September 30, 2024: The 2023-24 season was obviously a disappointment for the Scarlet Knights as they failed to make the tournament for the second straight year. It wasn't entirely unexpected with the loss of Paul Mulcahy and Cam Spencer to the transfer portal. However, Rutgers made a huge splash by early Spring where it became clear that they were going to land two top 5 high school recruits in Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey. (To put it in perspective, MSU has only had one class with 2 top 5 recru...
Sep 30, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 221
September 26, 2024: Last year second year head coach, Kevin Willard, and the Terrapins had a season they'd like to forget. Despite bringing back some key veterans and picking up highly rate recruits, the team took a turn for the worse last year. Nearly elite defense was negated by an abysmal offensive presence especially outside the 3 point line. In only his third year, Willard certainly isn't on the hot seat but another disappointing year at a school that cares about basketball might make next ...
Sep 26, 2024•55 min•Ep. 220
September 23, 2024: The third PAC-12 team we have previewed is the Oregon Ducks as they shift to a deeper basketball league that they are used to. Oregon has had a tradition of boom and bust teams and with the close relationship with Phil Knight and Nike, there is every reason to believe Oregon will be competitive. This year's team features some intriguing transfers along with a few valuable holdover pieces. As is the case with virtually every team in the Big Ten this year, there is a lot of unc...
Sep 23, 2024•48 min•Ep. 219
September 19, 2024: The Nebraska Cornhuskers finally made it back to the NCAA Tournament last year - the first for Head Coach Fred Hoiberg - but it resulted in yet another loss. Nebraska still hasn't won an NCAA Tournament game despite 8 tries over the years. It wasn't long ago that we talked about how maybe Fred Hoiberg would find himself on the hotseat in Lincoln. However, his team improved defensively and they added a fun and dynamic player in Keisei Tominaga as a starter the last two years a...
Sep 19, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 218
September 16, 2024: The USC Trojans are joining the Big Ten this year and although they are mostly thought of as a football power, they have some history of occasional success in basketball. Fans might recall MSU's matchup in the first round of the NCAA tournament in 2023 with a talented and dangerous Trojan squad. Well, the Trojans have overhauled the entire team this year as head coach Andy Enfield left for SMU and is being replaced by Eric Musselman from Arkansas. With Musselman come 13 new p...
Sep 16, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 217
September 12, 2024: Last year was a strange one for the Wisconsin Badgers. They started out blistering hot in the Big Ten behind tremendous athletic scoring of transfer AJ Storr with a halfway record of 8-1 and first place in the conference. Then the wheels (sort of) came off as they limped across the line to finish 11-9. A bright note was despite the swoon the Badgers managed to knock off top seed, and national runner-up Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament championship game. Unfortunately for Wisc...
Sep 12, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 216
September 9, 2024: After 5 straight years in the NCAA tournament, the Hawks missed the Tourney this year without the services of any of the Murray twins. It was a largely forgettable year for Iowa and head coach, Fran McCaffrey with a middle of the pack Big Ten finish and a team that statistically wasn't nearly as good as recent years. The Hawkeyes struggled more than their usual abysmal self on defense and with a less than elite offense were relegated to the ho hum season. Of note for this year...
Sep 09, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 215
September 5, 2024: Head coach Mike Rhoades took over at Penn State after the premature departure of Micah Shrewsbury. He was left with pretty much a decimated roster and had to rebuild from transfers and a couple players from his previous coaching job. Surprisingly, the experiment sort of worked last year as the Nittany Lions became a competitive team in January and fought hard to be at the bottom of the middle of the pack in the Big Ten. Of course, the question is whether they can build on last...
Sep 05, 2024•58 min•Ep. 214
September 2, 2024: Chris Collins has gone from us questioning if he would hold onto his job into now sending the Wildcats to back to back NCAA tournament bids and wins. Clearly the greatest coach Northwestern has ever had Collins will now try to establish something new - consistent winning. But he will have to do this without Big Ten killer, Boo Buie, who led the team the last two years with outstanding play at the point. In a traditionally difficult place to recruit, Collins will once again hav...
Sep 02, 2024•54 min•Ep. 213
August 29, 2024: The Big Ten welcomes in four teams from the PAC-12 this year which includes the Washington Huskies. Not only are the Huskies facing change by coming into a new league but they also have a new coach. Danny Sprinkle takes over for Mike Hopkins who only managed to go 12 games over .500 overall in seven seasons in Seattle. Sprinkle will largely take over an entirely new roster but one that includes transfer, Great Osobor, from Utah State who will be the corner piece of the program t...
Aug 29, 2024•55 min•Ep. 211
August 26, 2024: The season isn't far away so it's time to start our previews and sneak peak into teams in the Big Ten's 18 teams. We always begin our trek following Rod's expectations from 18 to 1. This year, Rod will again project Minnesota as the cellar dweller. Head coach, Ben Johnson, seems to be snake bit in Minneapolis. After an impressive inaugural season piecing together a bunch of mid major transfers to field a competitive team he followed it up with a disastrous season. However, last ...
Aug 26, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 209
August 20, 2024: Michigan State left for Spain for an exhibition basketball tour. College teams are only allowed to do this every 4 years or so but it had been 9 years for MSU since their last overseas trip. Coach Izzo felt it was time with a new point guard and five new players on the roster. The Spartans opened up play with a close victory over the Madrid All-Stars on Thursday followed by a blowout win over the Valencia All-Stars on Sunday. The all-star teams are composed of various pro and se...
Aug 20, 2024•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 212
August 15, 2024: 6'5" freshman wing Kur Teng hails from New Hampshire which is not traditional recruiting territory for Michigan State. However, Kur committed to MSU back in April of 2023 so he was convinced early and has been following the Spartans ever since. Are you looking for collegiate apparel including Spartan gear? There’s only one place we recommend you go to get your MSU T-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts — Nudge Printing. ( https://www.nudgeprinting.com ) Nudge is owned and operated by Ga...
Aug 15, 2024•17 min•Ep. 210
August 8, 2024: We met with incoming Freshman Jase Richardson and talked to him about his experience so far at MSU. He discussed his recruitment with Tom Izzo and described how it was different than other coaches. Finally, Jase is probably most famous with fans because he is the son of former MSU & NBA great, Jason Richardson. Richardson is probably best remembered for his insane leaping and athleticism and lots and lots of dunks. The question we all want to know is who does Jase think is a ...
Aug 08, 2024•25 min•Ep. 208
August 1, 2024: The second commitment to this year's freshman class was Jesse McCulloch from Cleveland, OH. The 6' 9" 215 pound power forward visited with us today to discuss his initial thoughts on MSU and coach Izzo. Jesse talked about a host of things including his recruitment, what it's like in practice, his bond with the other freshmen, and excitement to leave the country for the first time when the team heads to Spain. Are you looking for collegiate apparel including Spartan gear? There’s ...
Aug 01, 2024•19 min•Ep. 207
July 25, 2024: In a bit of a surprise move, Tom Izzo and the Spartans brought in 6' 11" grad transfer Szymon Zapala in after the departure of Mady Sissoko. In a transfer portal move that few knew was happening until the deal was pretty much done, Zapala brings his skills from Longwood University to East Lansing. The Polish native offers an intriguing skill set and options for Michigan State next year. Aside from the obvious depth at the 5, Szymon has the ability to step out and hit outside shots...
Jul 26, 2024•27 min•Ep. 205
July 18, 2024: Moneyball, the free pro-am tournament featuring Michigan State's roster and various current and former D1, D2 players is once again under way in the Lansing area. Hosted at Holt High School, the tournament highlights 12 of MSU's 13 scholarship players with only Jeremy Fears left out while recovering from his surgery over Christmas from a sustained gunshot wound. The night Eric attended saw all but Fidler and Booker play with the surprise addition of Fears in place of Booker. Today...
Jul 18, 2024•58 min•Ep. 206
July 11, 2024: We are lucky to have the best expert in the legal field, Professor Michael McCann, join us for a deep discussion on what is happening to the NCAA from a legal perspective. Professor McCann was on the legal team for Maurice Clarett's when he sued the NFL and helped write the book on Ed O'Bannon's legal challenge for NIL. Today's discussion goes over a lot of what is going on with the NCAA in the courts and potential upcoming strategies. What will happen with the House decision? Wha...
Jul 11, 2024•40 min•Ep. 204
July 5, 2024: Robbie Hummel returned to the show again to talk Big Ten Hoops, Purdue making the Final Four, the prospects of Zach Edey in the NBA, and what went wrong with Michigan State last year. Robbie brings his usual honest and folksy analysis to college basketball with a small dose of Indiana Hoosier shade. Are you looking for collegiate apparel including Spartan gear? There’s only one place we recommend you go to get your MSU T-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts — Nudge Printing. (https://www.n...
Jul 05, 2024•42 min•Ep. 203
