EAST LANSING – One day before Mick Cronin left on his scathing rant after UCLA’s tumultuous loss to Michigan on Tuesday nightTom Izzo paused when asked what challenges the four new West Coast additions bring to Big Ten basketball.
Michigan State The Hall of Fame coach said the historical feeling was that the old Pac-12 — which included the Bruins, USC, Oregon and the Spartans’ next opponent, Washington — “would have (been) considered as sweeter.”
Even though Cronin said as much about his UCLA team, Izzo now believes the new members are ready to contend in the bruising Big Ten.
Mick Cronin attacked his players after their loss to Michigan
“We are gentle… Every day I have more passion and energy in training than anyone. I’ve had it up to here. “It’s a joke… The truth is, it’s really hard to coach guys who are delusional.” pic.twitter.com/abGQdPkfQN
– The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) January 8, 2025
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“I don’t know if there’s that much of a difference,” Izzo said Monday. “And a lot of teams (had) players from the West Coast. Now it’s players from all over the country, more so thanks to the transfer portal. So it’s different.
No. 14 MSU (12-2, 3-0 Big Ten) welcomes its first of the new foes Thursday night with a visit from Washington. Tip-off at the Breslin Center is 8 p.m. EDT – or 5 p.m. in Seattle.
And Izzo feels the Huskies (10-5, 1-3) are a perfect representation of the stylistic difference and improved robustness compared to previous generations of programs on the Pacific coast.
“This team,” Izzo surmised of Washington, “they have guys who come after you.”
All four former Pac-12 schools are ranked in the top 100 by kenpom.comwith the Huskies ranking 87th. The 17th-ranked Bruins are 26th and the Ducks 27th on Wednesday, behind six other Big Ten programs, including MSU (18th), which enters Thursday having won seven in a row. USC is 77th.
Only one school in the conference (112th-ranked Minnesota) ranks lower than Washington, but the Huskies have won four of their last six games, all at home, knocking off previously ranked Maryland last Thursday and taking on Illinois , 15th, on the wire Sunday before losing 81. -77. They also lost in that stretch to Seattle Mid-Major by nine points.
“This league tests you mentally. Not just physically,” first-year coach Danny Sprinkle told reporters Monday in Seattle. “You saw in the last two games how physical these games are.”
The Mountain West Coach of the Year last season, Sprinkle led Utah State to a 28-7 record and an NCAA Tournament berth before being trampled in the second round by Purdue. It was his only season with the Aggies after spending the previous four years at Montana State, where he went 81-43.
Upon his arrival in Washington, Sprinkle dusted off his squad with 10 new players, including eight transfers. The Huskies are led by 6-foot-8 forward Great Osobor, who followed Sprinkle from Utah State and is averaging team highs with 14.3 points and 8.7 rebounds. Sophomore guard Tyler Harris, a 6-8 transfer to Portland, adds 12.1 points and 5.3 rebounds, while freshman point guard Zoom Diallo posts 10.9 points, 2.9 assists and 2.9 rebounds per game.
Although there are now 15 games on tape for Izzo and his team to scout this iteration of the Huskies, they have never played a Sprinkle-coached team before.
“We’re really trying to figure them out,” MSU redshirt freshman point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. said Monday. “They’re a West Coast team, we don’t usually play Washington, so it’s is new to the coaches, it’s new to us. We don’t yet know who they have, what they have, and they don’t really know what we have.
“He’s not someone we’re used to playing, like Ohio State or Illinois that’s in our conference. They were just added, so it will be interesting.
The Spartans own a 4-2 all-time record in the series dating back to 1942, which was a Washington victory in East Lansing. They have met twice in Izzo’s 30 seasons as head coach, most recently a 76-71 victory in the third-place game of the 2010 Maui Invitational. MSU won the only meeting between both at Breslin in Izzo’s first season, a 64-50 victory in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament on March 13, 1996.
As for the other three new foes, the Spartans will face them in early February, with a long road trip to Los Angeles to face USC on February 1 and UCLA on February 4 and return home. to a Feb. 8 visit to Oregon.
On Tuesday, the Bruins were bombarded while visiting Michigan, falling behind by 18 points in the first half before rallying to take a brief lead in the second half, then falling apart again in the final 10 minutes. In addition to calling his players “soft” and “delusional,” among other things, Cronin, a tough guy from the Midwest — who grew up in Ohio and once coached at Cincinnati — added that “the dog hungry takes the bone” when it comes to competing in the Big Ten.
“Right now,” he said, “I’m looking deep for guys who will play hard enough to win a Big Ten game. … The team that has its mind on the right things and has thirsty for victory in conference is the one that will probably win.
Izzo hopes his dogs have more bite than bark against the Huskies and other old Pac-12 foes.
“I know what’s at stake. I know what’s around the corner,” he said. “I know that every match will be this type of match. I really believe that too. And people who don’t must not have watched games on TV – it happens everywhere. …I just think people have a hard time dealing with success in general.
“And I want to make sure that my team is mature enough, but also maybe hungry enough to not be satisfied. It’s so easy to be complacent these days, and I don’t want to be complacent until the end of the season. Then I want to be satisfied.
This article was originally published on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State vs. Washington Basketball Prediction
