East Lansing – Madison Square Garden was mean to Tom Izzo.
Rutgers has not been much more welcoming for n ° 8 of Michigan in recent years either.
The Big Ten-Leading Spartans (16-2, 7-0), winners of 11 consecutive, Face Rutgers (10-9, 3-5) at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday instead of New York. It will be the first match of the Scarlet Knights televised nationally on CBS since the 1991 NCAA tournament and their first regular season since 1983.
“It will be July 4 and Christmas for them,” said Izzo on Wednesday. “But it’s going to be a bit exciting for us. And I just hope that we will continue to play with the energy that we had and that we rely on consistency. »»
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MSU has a 4-17 sheet in the garden, considered one of the basketball guys in America. Izzo has a 4-13 sheet with his last victory against Wisconsin in the 2018 Big Ten Tournament, in his only appearance in New York.
In the meantime, the Spartans have lost three of their last five against Rutgers, including a regular season match of February 4, 2023 in MSG. This season, the MSU season ended in the NCAA Sweet 16 tournament a little more than a month later, with a defeat in overtime against Kansas State.
“I have never won it before,” said Jaden Akins, senior, who has 0-3 in the garden. “So I’m trying to win a victory and play team basketball and do it.”
The challenge for MSU in this meeting is to try to stop the two recovery prospects of Scarlet Knights, the first year AS Bailey and Dylan Harper, who are the second and third markers in the Big Ten.
Bailey, a 6 -foot swingman 10 inches and 200 pounds, leads Rutgers to 19.9 points per game and ranks eighth from the conference at 7.9 rebounds. He also has 23 blocks and 18 interceptions in total while pulling 39.3% on a 3 -point range.
Harper, a 6-6 guard (and the son of the former NBA star, Ron Harper), is on average 19.3 points with 5.1 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game for 19 interceptions and 10 blocks in total. It is also a deep threat to 34.1% in 3s.
“Their two superstars in Bailey and Harper are legitimate,” said Izzo. “You see that Bailey takes incredible photos, and Harper just has an incredible feeling. These are two of the best players I have seen in this league for a while. “”
These two lead a revised list for the Scarlet Knights, who start two other first-year students in striker 6-7 Dylan Grant and the center of 6-10, 275 pounds Lathan Sommerville. Although there have been increasing pain in the transition – including a loss of November in Kennesaw State – Pikiell remains the regular hand which directs the program which embraces many of the same principles of gravelly defense and tenacity in its own ‘Izzo preaches.
“They just put a good offense. They know how to try to get offsets in attack, “said Akins. “They play a difficult defense, and they just play physically.”
Rutgers hired Pikiell before the 2016-2017 season, and Izzo has always been complementary to the style and approach to the former coach of Stony Brook while MSU won the first six times they played after the change of ‘coach.
Then the Scarlet Knights beat the Spartans with consecutive years. The first was a ugly MSU loss of 30 points at the Rutgers Athletic Center in 2021 in the first match of the Spartans after a 10 -day cocovid break. The following year, Pikiell’s team snatched a 21 -point victory in Rutgers, the last time these two met on the Campus in Piscataway, New Jersey.
In 2023, the game moved to the garden, a change in places that initially upset fans of the Knights Scarlet. It was until Rutgers withdrew for a six -point victory and the crowd could have a strong crowd projection, which increased the buzz to bring the match on Saturday to New York.
After not having played the NCAA tournament when it was canceled in 2020, Rutgers made March Madness in 2021 – his first appearance of the NCAA in 30 years – and did it again in 2022. The Scarlet Knights have slipped into the Nit in 2023 then missed in 2022. The playoffs a year ago. The team of this year Tensia to miss the NCAA again after losing four of its last six, including the defeat of 80-72 on Monday in Penn State.
“It’s a new team. Each year will be like that, you have to understand them, “Pikiell told journalists on Monday. “I think we are heading in the right direction.”
This makes the match mark on Saturday with MSU – on the large stage of the garden and under national spotlights – a potentially pivotal point for the Knights Scarlet. But it is also a chance for Spartans to continue to increase and extend their longest victories sequence since he won 13 consequences on the way to make the last Izzo Four Four in 2019.
“This game, I don’t know, they could have moved none of their games there. They moved our game there, ”said Izzo. “Is it a compliment? A plus? One less? It happens, I don’t know. But I just think it’s great when your players are lucky to play in places and do things that will be for them. »»
Michigan State vs rutgers prediction
It will be another “rock fight” because Izzo and Pikiell qualified their previous meetings. But the depth of the Spartans exhausts the scarlet knights at both ends in the garden, and their defensive tenacity and their versatility entries Bailey and Harper to extend their sequence of victories to 12 consecutive. The choice: MSU 77, Rutgers 68.
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tom Izzo, Michigan State Basketball is trying to solve Rutgers, NYC
(Tagstotranslate) Scarlet Knights (T) Michigan State (T) Tom Izzo (T) Rutgers (T) Ace Bailey (T) Msu (T) Madison Square Garden (T) Dylan Harper (T) NCAA tournament
