For the first time since 2020, Michigan State basketball is your Big Ten Champion. What’s even sweeter is that the Spartans are the outright champion and won’t share the title this year after MSU beat Iowa in Iowa City on Thursday night, 91 to 84.
The win puts the exclamation point on a regular season that a lot of people didn’t see coming from an MSU team that didn’t have a preseason All-American on the roster (and probably won’t have a postseason All-American on the roster either). It was strength in numbers all season, and that trend continued in the win over the Hawkeyes.
Below, we put together our five takeaways from a title-winning victory for the Spartans:
Jase Richardson should be on the All-Big Ten team
Jase Richardson became an easy lock for the Big Ten’s All-Freshman team a while ago. It’s time to upgrade those expectations to the actual All-Conference team. It might not happen because Richardson didn’t become the focal point for the MSU offense until later in the season so he doesn’t have the eye-popping overall stats to compare to some other players in the conference, but his performance in key games this year has been undeniable, especially in the last eight games starting with his 29-point barrage against Oregon.
Coen Carr is slowly turning into a star
While Jase Richardson’s emergence as a freshman has been probably the biggest story of the season for MSU, Coen Carr’s development into an elite defender, solid rebounder, and efficient offensive weapon with his amazing transition dunks has been a massive development for the Spartans this season. Carr had eight points, five rebounds, four blocks and an assist against the Hawkeyes and was a major difference-maker in the comeback win.
MSU figures out a way to beat the zone, again
In the first half, Iowa used a zone defense, which has been a kryptonite at times this year against MSU. However, Michigan State was eventually able to break through the zone with some savvy passing and rim pressure. Because it has led to a few of their only losses this year, you can expect MSU to see some zone in the postseason, but if they can dispatch it like they did tonight, Tom Izzo will welcome it from their opponents.
Free throw shooting has been uncharacteristically bad of late
Michigan State has been one of the best free throw shooting teams in the country this year, but have stumbled a bit at the line of late. Against Iowa, the Spartans went 20-of-30 from the charity stripe. Quite frankly, if MSU just hit their free throws, this game wouldn’t have been quite as stressful. However, I am positive that Izzo will sort that out at practice and it’s been such a limited issue this year I don’t expect it to continue into the tournaments.
Michigan State’s depth is a cheat code
Everyone knows it, but it has to be said, this MSU teams’ superpower is their depth. Even in games where MSU takes some punches early, it seems like eventually, the combination of their hard defense, aggressive rebounding, and constant running in transition, coupled with their 10-man rotation just wears teams down by the end of the game, allowing Michigan State to pull ahead. It will be interesting to see how effective that continues to be in the tournaments, but it’s definitely been a cheat code all year and again on Thursday night.
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This article originally appeared on Spartans Wire: Five takeaways from Michigan State basketball’s victory over Iowa
