MSU Welcomes Washington as Newest Big Ten Member

**Thursday, 1/9. 7:00pm EST on BTN**

Michigan State (#16 AP/#14) returns to the friendly confines of the Breslin Center where they will play three of their next four contests, on the heels of a resilient win at OSU last weekend. They will have some extra time to prepare for one of the newest conference members, the Washington Huskies (10-5, 1-2, T-14th) led by first year head coach, Danny Sprinkle.

Michigan State men’s basketball continues its climb up the national rankings. No. 16 in the AP poll and No. 14 in the Coaches Poll. pic.twitter.com/dJ6YbWNu7y

— Spartans Illustrated (@SpartansRivals) January 6, 2025

Coach Sprinkle spring-boarded his coaching career after returning to his alma mater, Montana State, and guiding them to 4 consecutive years of winning seasons (81-43), never finishing lower than 4th in the Big Sky and culminated in back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, finishing 1st in 2021-22 and 2nd in 2022-23 in the conference (52-18). In 2023-24, Danny transitioned into Utah State’s void and had immediate success going 28-7 (1st Mountain West) and a Round of 64 win in his 3rd consecutive NCAA appearance, falling in the proceeding round and celebrated his 100th overall win. He was awarded COY in 2022 and 2024, prior to his arrival at Washington.

TALE OF THE TAPE:

Washington is currently sitting almost a full win below in Wins Above the Bubble (WAB) projection and is fairly average in most breakout categories. MSU dominates with a 10+ higher offensive scoring margin and 3+ higher defensive scoring margin directly compared to the Huskies. WASH does get to the free throw line just behind MSU’s attempts/game, average 2+ more steals/game, right behind MSU in effective 2-pt FG % defense efficiency and play some of the best permitter defense averaging 7th in 3-pt FG% and 21st in 3-point FG Rate. However, that is where most, if not all, similarities end. The Huskies have some questionable loses (Seattle and Nevada) with some cupcake wins in abundance. In short, their loss to Maryland will be just a teaser heading into this matchup as the Terrapins are also on a slide.

Coach Sprinkle plays his bench as deep as Coach Izzo in quality minutes with 5 players averaging 20+ min/game with four additional players averaging 15+ min/game mixed in with a smattering of others around 4-7 minutes. Leading the scoring charge is Great Osobor (MTST/USU; Sr -F) at 14.3 ppg (47.2% FG), 8.7 reb, 3.5 apg and a healthy 2.3 steals (he does average a whopping 3.5 turnovers too), Tyler Harris (Portland; So-G) at 12.1 ppg (50% FG, 76.7% FT & 46.3% 3-pt), 5.3 reb and 1.3 blk, Zoom Diallo (Fr-G) with 11.1 ppg (50.9% FG), 3.0 reb, 2.6 ast. They have only two other players who hit better than 70%+ from the free throw line (65% as a team) with Harris being the only legitimate 3-point threat at his volume (Christian King is 47.4% from deep, but with a smaller volume making them in only 5 of 7 games with attempts).

Tom Izzo: How Michigan State basketball can go ‘from good to great’ https://t.co/ubo2sUL6KW

— Chris Solari (@chrissolari) January 7, 2025

MSU Game Plan:

Given that barely any of UW’s size plays more than 4-6 minutes a game, I believe Izzo will force them to use their unproven size a bit more and run Jaxon Kohler, Syzmon Zapala, Xavier Booker and Coen Carr quite a bit and force them out of their comfort zone. The size and experience should increase Michigan State’s dominance to stellar on the defensive end and produce multiple second-chance opportunities on the offensive end. Should there be any issues, MSU can adjust and go smaller with a combination of Aikins, Holloman, Richardson and Fears Jr.

Without any advantageous metrics for the Huskies, this appears to be a bounce back spot for both Jase and Jeremy who struggled against OSU while Aikins continues to pace the offense and outside shooting–but he can’t keep doing it on his own and the matchup could produce more outside shots for Jeremy and Trey, allowing Jase to continue working the offense. The screen-and-roll along with the staggered weak-side screen for alley-oops has been extremely effective the last few games and I do not see MSU altering that approach much given their continued 3-pt% struggles. The transition is where MSU will look to put near their 20 pt average after only 9 against OSU. However, I do expect some wrinkles and maybe a few different plays previously ran during non-conference that they liked and shelved for resurfacing during Big Ten play.

In short, this could end up being a run-a-way, but Coach Sprinkle has been a winner everywhere he’s gone, followed by loyal recruit Osobor, and certainly will give Coach Izzo and company their best shot. Foul trouble would only become an issue if it involves more than 1-2 players, early in the game as the depth and minutes averaged are almost identical.

RANKINGS:

Record: 12-2, (3-0 Big Ten, T-1st). Rankings: AP- 16th, Coaches- 14th (Updated: 1/6)

KenPom: 16th (+4) // Bart Torvik: 24th (+1). // KPI: 16th

Updated KenPom- Off: 33rd (+/- 0), Def: 11th (+6). AdjT: 155th (+/- 0). SOS Net Rtg: 51st (+31) +4.59

Other Metrics: KPI (16th), ESPN SoR (19th), ESPN BPI (21st).

FULL KenPom Stats: https://kenpom.com/index.php

FULL Bart Torvik Stats: https://barttorvik.com/#

FULL T-Rank Stats: https://www.warrennolan.com/basketball/2025/net-teamsheets-plus#google_vignette