Date 11/10 || Time 7:00 || Venue
Cameron Indoor Stadium || Video ESPNDuke travels to Chicago on Tuesday to take on Tom Izzo’s always tough Michigan State Spartans in this year’s Champions Classic.
Michigan State is currently ranked #6, while the Blue Devils are #2, but rankings this early are basically meaningless.
What’s not meaningless? Michigan State’s culture and experience. Izzo brings back Jeremy Fears, perhaps the nation’s best point guard, 6-6 Coen Carr, a tremendously athletic player, 6-7
Kaleb Glenn, 6-11 Jesse McCulloch, 6-8 Jordan Scott, 6-5 Kur Teng, 6-8 Brennan Walton, 6-8 Colin Walton, and 6-9 Cam Ward.
Izzo generally has hard-nosed teams that give Duke a very tough game every time they play.
Nothing much will change in East Lansing as long as Izzo is there.
That said, this team, at this point in the season, has some issues.
First, free-throw shooting is erratic. Aside from Fears, who is shooting 80 percent so far, the rest of this team has really struggled at the line. Carr and Glenn are hitting just 66.7 percent, Ward, 62.5, , and Medlock just 1-6 so far for 16.7 percent.
The only player, other than Fears, who is shooting better than 66.7 percent is freshman Jasiah Jervis, who is hitting 75 percent.
It’s early in the season, obviously, but perimeter play has been an issue. Against Toledo, Michigan State had 14 turnovers, including 4 by Fears.
The Spartans have also stacked up considerable foul trouble, getting whistled for 24 against Toledo.
Additionally, Ward has struggled to regain his form after a preseason ankle injury. He fouled out in just nine minutes against Toledo.
And 7-2 transfer Anton Bonke has struggled to move up to the Power Conference level, which has forced Izzo to go with freshman Ethan Taylor, or else resort to small-ball.
These are serious problems, but Izzo is obviously a great coach, and these are points of emphasis this week. Presumably, they’re being addressed.
It’s possible that these issues will play directly into Duke’s hands. With Cayden Boozer, John Blackwell, Caleb Foster, and Deron Rippey, not to mention Dame Sarr and Bryson Howard, being careless with the ball could be a serious mistake.
And needless to say, the way that Patrick Ngongba has been playing, you need a strong counter in the post. Bonke – who, by the way, is the only player we can remember who hails from Vanuatu, will have to deal with Ngongba, JoJo Boumtje Boumtje, and possibly Drew Scharnowski and Cameron Williams. He will have his hands full.
Finally, there’s free throw shooting. In a blowout, it’s not that relevant. In a close game, which we expect here, it could matter tremendously.
However, you have to balance all of that against the remarkable culture that Izzo has built. And you also have to factor this in: while Michigan State has a lot of experienced players back from last season, who have competed at very high levels, Duke has two upperclassmen (Foster and Ngongba), who have been at Duke for four and three seasons, respectively. Blackwell, a senior, and Scharnowski, a junior, are new to Duke.
Otherwise, everyone else is either a sophomore (Boozer, Sarr, and Sebastian Wilkins, who is a redshirt freshman), or a true freshman (Boumtje Boumtje, Rippey, Howard, Williams, and Meyer).
We could imagine, say, Boumtje Boumtje or Rippey having statement games here. We could also imagine this game is an introduction to a kind of physical, tough basketball that they haven’t yet encountered, and one that teaches painful but necessary lessons. That guy knows exactly what to expect from an Izzo-coached team.
One last thing to keep in mind: Blackwell played Michigan State four times while a Wisconsin Badger. Last season, he scored 24 points in Game 1, and 16 in Game 2. Interesting trivia: Blackwell has never missed a free throw against Michigan State.
So what’s the upshot of all of this?
Basically, it’s this: it’s not just Michigan State’s culture and toughness against Duke’s youth and talent. It’s going to be decision making on both sides, and whether Duke does a better job of controlling Fears, or Michigan State does a better job on Ngongba.
We don’t bet and don’t make predictions often, but if we’re Scheyer, first we’re going to sic Sarr on Fears, follow that with some rotation of Foster, Boozer, Rippey, and Howard, and turn the pressure up to 11. Then we’re going to force the ball inside to Ngongba as much as possible, and see if Michigan State’s evolving post defense can handle him.
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