Next Up – Michigan State

SB Nation

Duke plays the Michigan State Spartans on Saturday and beyond that, the non-conference gauntlet is almost over, with majors Texas Tech next Saturday and Michigan in February (Duke also plays Lipscomb at home).

As long as Tom Izzo is there, nothing much will change with the way the Spartans approach the game. It’s fairly, well, Spartan.

You’re going to get a physical opponent that pounds the boards, defends hard and tries to run whenever possible.

Izzo is not overly fond of the portal and tries to stick with players he’s recruited as much as possible. He’s very old school. Our old joke was that Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski coached Special Forces while Izzo coached soldiers and we mean it s a compliment to Izzo. We love how his teams play, always have.

This year, Izzo is going with a nine-man rotation: Coen Carr, (6-6 junior), Jaxon Kohler (6-9/245 lb. senior), Carson Cooper (6-11/245 senior), Cam Ward (6-8/225 freshman), Trey Fort (6-4 senior), Kur Teng (6-4 sophomore), Jordan Scott (6-7 freshman), Divine Ugochukwu (6-4 sophomore who started off at Miami) and the indispensable man, Jeremy Fears (6-3 redshirt sophomore).

Fears is a great college point guard. Izzo has gone so far as to compare him to Spartan legend Mateen Cleaves, who helped Michigan State to the national title in 2000.

He’s had at least two profound points in the past – aside from Cleaves, he had Cassius Winston a few years ago. Fears may or may not make it to that level, but he’s tremendous. As Al McGuire said of Phil Ford in 1977, cut of the head and the body dies. Stopping (or at least limiting) Fears is the key to beating Michigan State.

He’s averaging a whopping 9.4 assist per game. He’s also getting 12.3 ppg and 3.4 boards.

Kohler is very close to a double-double with 14.3 ppg and 9.9 boards. Carr is putting up decent numbers with 11.3 points and 5.1 boards.

No one else is in double figures, not that it matters. Cooper gets 9.6 points and 5.9 boards while Ward puts up 9 ppg and 5.1 rebounds.

Michigan State is a classic midwestern program, not quite what UNC was under Dean Smith, a native Kansan who learned his craft from Phog Allen, but very good. Michigan State plays the game the right way. There are no ball hogs on an Izzo squad.

Like some other people apparently, we thought that Florida’s size would bother Cameron Boozer and you could argue that he didn’t necessarily shoot that well, but it’s not like 10-21 is that awful (he was 3-9 on threes but shot 7-12 otherwise, also not dreadful).

You can be sure that Michigan State will play him aggressively and try to rattle him as much as possible.

We’re guessing Pat Ngongba and Maliq Brown can handle it, but it might be tougher for Isaiah Evans, who is 6-6 and 180, Dame Sarr, Nik Khamenia, Cayden Boozer and possibly Darren Harris, even though Harris has shown his inner dog at times this season. We don’t know that it’ll be as much of a problem for Caleb Foster, but there’s no way around it: Michigan State is going to leave some bruises. Nothing dirty; it’s just that they are a very physical team and always have been.

We’re a little concerned about Khamenia. He looked like he was in really serious pain Tuesday against Florida when he hurt his ankle and that might linger. He had just moved into the starting lineup too.

Assuming that Duke can stand up to Michigan State’s physical style and can play Fears reasonably well, the Blue Devils have a solid chance of moving to 10-0.