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

August 15, 2024: 6'5" freshman wing Kur Teng hails from New Hampshire which is not traditional recruiting territory for Michigan State. However, Kur committed to MSU back in April of 2023 so he was convinced early and has been following the Spartans ever since. Are you looking for collegiate apparel including Spartan gear? There’s only one place we recommend you go to get your MSU T-shirts, hoodie...

August 8, 2024: We met with incoming Freshman Jase Richardson and talked to him about his experience so far at MSU. He discussed his recruitment with Tom Izzo and described how it was different than other coaches. Finally, Jase is probably most famous with fans because he is the son of former MSU & NBA great, Jason Richardson. Richardson is probably best remembered for his insane leaping and athle...

August 1, 2024: The second commitment to this year's freshman class was Jesse McCulloch from Cleveland, OH. The 6' 9" 215 pound power forward visited with us today to discuss his initial thoughts on MSU and coach Izzo. Jesse talked about a host of things including his recruitment, what it's like in practice, his bond with the other freshmen, and excitement to leave the country for the first time w...

July 25, 2024: In a bit of a surprise move, Tom Izzo and the Spartans brought in 6' 11" grad transfer Szymon Zapala in after the departure of Mady Sissoko. In a transfer portal move that few knew was happening until the deal was pretty much done, Zapala brings his skills from Longwood University to East Lansing. The Polish native offers an intriguing skill set and options for Michigan State next y...

July 18, 2024: Moneyball, the free pro-am tournament featuring Michigan State's roster and various current and former D1, D2 players is once again under way in the Lansing area. Hosted at Holt High School, the tournament highlights 12 of MSU's 13 scholarship players with only Jeremy Fears left out while recovering from his surgery over Christmas from a sustained gunshot wound. The night Eric atten...

July 11, 2024: We are lucky to have the best expert in the legal field, Professor Michael McCann, join us for a deep discussion on what is happening to the NCAA from a legal perspective. Professor McCann was on the legal team for Maurice Clarett's when he sued the NFL and helped write the book on Ed O'Bannon's legal challenge for NIL. Today's discussion goes over a lot of what is going on with the...

July 5, 2024: Robbie Hummel returned to the show again to talk Big Ten Hoops, Purdue making the Final Four, the prospects of Zach Edey in the NBA, and what went wrong with Michigan State last year. Robbie brings his usual honest and folksy analysis to college basketball with a small dose of Indiana Hoosier shade. Are you looking for collegiate apparel including Spartan gear? There’s only one place...

June 27, 2024: It might be the off season but that doesn't mean Michigan State's coaching staff isn't busy working on its future roster. With the era of the transfer portal, roster construction has changed and the importance a staff puts on new recruits has altered. The Spartans, however, have been operating similar to how they have in the past with Coach Izzo chasing the high school prospects har...

June 20, 2024: College basketball analyst and ESPN commentator, Jay Bilas, returns the show to discuss the college basketball landscape again. After our discussion with Jay last summer, we wanted to get his expanded thoughts on the direction the NCAA athletics has moved over the past year and where it is headed. The House decision is awaiting approval in the court system which will affect the reve...

June 13, 2024: One of the worst kept secrets came to fruition as Tom Izzo and the Spartans officially named former UM assistant coach, Saddi Washington, as a new assistant coach. Despite his 8 year stint in Ann Arbor, Saddi actually has very deep ties to Michigan State as his father, Stan, was a former star at MSU from 1964-66. Saddi Washington will replace outgoing associate coach Mark Montgomery...

June 6, 2024: We were joined again this week with prolific sports columnist Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News to talk college hoops. DeCourcy is also a regular on the BTN so he follows the Big Ten very closely as well as the college basketball landscape in general. We talked about what the Big Ten expansion means for basketball by adding a famed program like UCLA. We touched upon how the game has...

May 30, 2024: Summer brings us time to reflect on the Spartan teams of the past and current events in the college basketball world. Today, we decided to riff off a column by Graham Couch from the LSJ and look back at past MSU teams to rank which teams were the best that never won it all. Although the LSJ column focused just on past Izzo teams, Rod decided to head into the vault and add a team from...

May 23, 2024: One of the new additions to the Big Ten this year will be the USC Trojans. Best known for their football, the Trojans have had some success on the hard court as well. Especially located in Southern California, USC has access to some great talent and money. However, USC just had their long time coach, Andy Ensfield, depart for other opportunities and welcomes in a coaching lightning r...

May 14, 2024: Today, the MSU Spartans landed what appears to be the last piece of the roster puzzle in 7 foot 240# Szymon Zapala. With this center, addition it appears that Tom Izzo has added depth inside without upsetting the dynamics in the locker room with Kohler and Cooper. Zapala played his first three seasons at Utah State in a limited role behind a future NBA center and Euro league center....

May 9, 2024: The Washington Huskies are joining the Big Ten which has obvious implications from a football standpoint. But what about in hoops? The Huskies are not known for great basketball but Seattle produces a lot of solid talent. Washington is in transition as it moves to a new coach who will try and right the ship, score some talent in the portal, and find a way to keep some of the high scho...

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 b...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 o...

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 do...

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 brea...

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....

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 tr...