MSU\u2019s 80-72 win over Penn State<\/a>, especially in the first half.<\/p>\nHe may have quieted down in the second half, but his first-half performance was good enough to earn him the starting spot for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
Carson Cooper shines against Penn State<\/h3>\n
Cooper finished the Penn State game with a season high 10 points and four rebounds. He also added one assist and one block as well. However, his best play of the night won\u2019t show up anywhere on the stat sheet, but is a prime example of why he should be the starter going forward.<\/p>\n
Michigan State was in the midst of a run in the first half and were pulling away from Penn State. After a missed shot, the ball was loose and Penn State looked to be corralling it near mid-court. Cooper however had other plans. He came out of nowhere, won the loose ball which prevented a 2-on-1 break and passed it to AJ Hoggard who found Jaden Akins for a wide open three. Cooper won\u2019t get any stats for that play, but he prevented an easy bucket for Penn State which led to a five point swing for MSU.<\/p>\n
This play was sandwiched between a perfect 4-for-4 from the free throw line as well as two transition layups. Cooper did everything that we expect from MSU\u2019s post players, and that\u2019s why he should become the starter.<\/p>\n
Why should Cooper be the starter?<\/h3>\n
I don\u2019t want to knock Mady Sissoko, that\u2019s not really my style, but he hasn\u2019t been good enough recently. Sissoko isn\u2019t a huge scoring threat, and frankly neither is Cooper. But the latter has shown the ability to run the floor and get timely buckets while also hitting his free throws.<\/p>\n
Sissoko is known for his solid defense and rebounding, but he hasn\u2019t been very stellar in those areas recently either. If he was continuing to dominate on defense and rebounding then I wouldn\u2019t suggest anyone should start over him. That, however, just hasn\u2019t been the case.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think Sissoko should ride the bench by any means and I do think he\u2019ll turn it on still as the season progresses, but Cooper has been more consistent. So I believe it\u2019s time for him to become the starter and see how he does with extended minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s time to give Carson Cooper the start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":14284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[225,190,189,504],"class_list":["post-14247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-carson-cooper","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}