The Final Four Is Not On The Schedule - A Podcast Discussing Michigan State Basketball.

May 2, 2024: Beginning this fall, UCLA leaves the PAC-12 and joins the Big Ten to create an 18 team mega-league. The move was obviously spurred forward by football and the Big Ten's lucrative TV rights but there are obvious implications for basketball. Although UCLA is a decent football program, their basketball heritage is one that will boost the profile of the Big Ten.

We spoke to former Bruin basketball player, Travis Reed, who ...

April 23, 2024: Portal season (roster season) is in full swing and Michigan State added a player today from the University of Omaha, Frankie Fidler. Now, ordinarily one wouldn’t look to the Summit League for talent but Fidler is an exception.

Fidler is a 6’7” 200# wing who averaged 20.1 ppg, 6.3 rpg, and 8 free throws a game while shooting 45/36/84. With the plan on having Akins slide over to the 2 MSU w...

April 17, 2024: College basketball roster season is officially open now that the NCAA tournament is over. Every team is active trying to acquire the right players to complete their team. Players still have until the end of April to enter the transfer portal so we expect a lot of movement yet.

As for MSU, the Spartans seem to be looking to add a large wing who can shoot and a power forward to play the 4. That leads us to believe tha...

April 11, 2024: Now that we've done our season recap for the Spartans, we turned to the rest of the Big Ten including Michigan's historically bad (putrid?) season. Purdue and Illinois had very good seasons whereas Maryland and Ohio State underperformed.

Nebraska and Northwestern built on last year and had some success that carried them into the NCAA tournament. Other very good seasons were had by Minnesota and Penn State which grea...

April 6, 2024: Now that the season is over, it’s time for coaching moves and roster changes for college basketball. A few days ago, assistant coach Mark Montgomery was named the new head coach for the University of Detroit-Mercy. He was formerly a head coach at Northern Illinois. His vacancy will leave room for Izzo to add a new coach to the staff. We discussed the known potential candidates.

Also, Mady ...

March 28, 2024: Michigan State ended the 2023-24 season 20-15 and 10-10 in the Big Ten. It was a year in which expectations were sky high coming off a Sweet 16 exit and impressive performance from the MSU backcourt led by AJ Hoggard. The 2023-24 year had all the signs of what might be a deep tournament run and competing for the Big Ten with almost all the starters returning and then the addition of a top 5 recruiting class.

But thi...

March 23, 2024: Michigan State’s season comes to an end after losing to North Carolina 85-69 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The first half saw huge swings in the lead as MSU went from up 12 to down 9 at half time. The story of this game was much the same as it was in many games throughout the season - inconsistent point guard play.

The Spartans managed to chip away and get the lead down to 2...

March 22, 2024: Tom Izzo and the Spartans easily dispatched a Mississippi State team in the first round of the tournament to earn an opportunity to make its second straight sweet 16. Next up are the mighty Tar Heels from North Carolina who were regular season champs in the ACC and earned the number one seed in the West. MSU is 0-5 against the Heels in NCAA Tournament play so they will hope to break that streak much the way they bro...

March 21, 2024: Michigan State and Tom Izzo continued their first round dominance with a drubbing of number 8 seed Mississippi State, 69-51. It was a game that MSU led wire to wire and was never really pushed except for a few brief moments at the end of the first half where Mississippi State scored back to back 3s to cut the lead to 5 before Malik Hall hit a jumper at the buzzer for the Spartans.

Michiga...

March 19, 2024: We are joined once again by expert bracketologist, Dom Lese of Bracketometry.com, to go over what the heck happened with the NCAA selection committee this year. Dom tells us that one of the problems this year was that one of the long standing metrics for evaluating teams was removed and not replaced because Sagarin no longer worked college basketball games which created problems trying to find outliers...

March 18, 2024: Michigan State returns to the NCAA Tournament for the 26th consecutive year and as a 9 seed will face 8th seeded Mississippi State from the SEC. Both teams come in with less than spectacular records but are teams who could be dangerous. 

Both MSU's arrive with similar offensive and defensive ratings although they get there different ways. Michigan State doesn't turn the ball over and is o...

March 17, 2024: Well, Michigan State once again is dancing in March for their 26th consecutive appearance as the 9 seed in the West against Mississippi State out of the SEC. Their second round opponent would likely be North Carolina if they advance in the games in Charlotte, NC.

It was a topsy turvy couple days as just about every potential bid thief ended up winning their conference tournaments leaving ...

March 16, 2024: Michigan State lost in a quarterfinal matchup with Purdue 67-62 thanks to some poor shooting and even poorer officiating. We don’t often attribute losses to officials - and even this one we will place more of the blame on the team than the officiating - but it is hard to not see the calls in this game as contributing in a significant way.

Unlike the game in West Lafayette a few weeks ago,...

March 14, 2024: Michigan State defeated Minnesota in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament in Minneapolis 77-67 to all but lock up Tom Izzy’s 26th straight NCAA Tournament appearance. Despite trailing by 2 at halftime, MSU’s guards went to work and dominated the second half scoring over 30 points in the paint and pulling away from the Gophers to win by ten.

That puts the Spartans squarely in the cro...

March 13, 2024: Bracket Dom, America’s number one bracketologist according to Bracket Matrix, joins us again to go over all the NCAA tournament seeding scenarios for MSU and the rest of the Big Ten. For Spartan fans worried about MSU’s tournament streak….well, let’s just say a win over Minnesota in the first round would help.

As for the rest of the Big Ten, there’s not a whole lot of movement outside of ...

March 12, 2024: Michigan State begins its postseason Thursday at noon (11 CT) in Minneapolis as the 8 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. MSU doesn't usually play on Thursday but we all know how this year unfolded and they find themselves probably not with a do or die game against the Gophers. However, to avoid working up a sweat Sunday during the selection show it sure would be nice to not worry about making the NCAA field.

This will ...

March 11, 2024: Get ready for the 2024 Big Ten Tournament  hosted in Minneapolis for the first time ever. First place Purdue looks to repeat as tournament champ and continue its dominance of the league this year.

As for the rest of the Big Ten, who knows how it will proceed? We handicap the games and feel that there is often not a whole lot of difference from 3-11 in the seeding. It's truly anyone's tournament to advance (until the...

March 10, 2024: Once again, Michigan State showed its inconsistency in closing the regular season at Bloomington with a loss 65-64. The start to the game was terrible, the middle of the game was one in which the Spartans were humming at both ends allowing a 17 point deficit to become a 7 point lead midway through the second half only to be squandered away at the end.

Tyson Walker led MSU with 30 points o...

March 8, 2024: Michigan State looks to close out the regular season Sunday in Bloomington against Indiana for the teams’ only matchup of the year. Indiana is riding a 3 game winning streak and MSU has only won one of their last four. Like most of the Spartans’ season, it is anyone’s guess which MSU team shows up.

Hopefully the Spartans will bring their jump shots to this game since they shot a dreadful 1...