{"id":15354,"date":"2024-03-02T14:18:42","date_gmt":"2024-03-02T19:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=15354"},"modified":"2024-03-02T14:18:42","modified_gmt":"2024-03-02T19:18:42","slug":"malik-hall-carson-cooper-weigh-in-on-xavier-booker-playing-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=15354","title":{"rendered":"Malik Hall and Carson Cooper weigh in on Xavier Booker playing time"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Malik Hall and Carson Cooper appeared on a recent podcast to talk about the season and Xavier Booker was brought up.<\/h2>\n<p>I think everyone who cares even a little bit about <a href=\"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/michigan-state-basketball-getting-to-know-no-2-purdue\/\">Michigan State basketball<\/a> has an opinion on how Tom Izzo has handled Xavier Booker this year. Izzo and Booker have both spoken on the subject as well as every local media member imaginable. Even <a href=\"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/draymond-green-chimes-in-on-the-xavier-booker-discussion\/\">Draymond Green spoke on this topic as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>However, we haven\u2019t heard much from other players on the team. That is until Malik Hall and Carson Cooper spoke about it on a recent episode of The Spiro Avenue Show.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Why didn\u2019t Xavier Booker play more against Ohio State?<\/p>\n<p>Carson Cooper and Malik Hall weighed in on the hottest MSU topic. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/iN6eIAwD8a\">pic.twitter.com\/iN6eIAwD8a<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Justin Spiro (@DarkoStateNews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DarkoStateNews\/status\/1763979435231895557?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 2, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Hall and Cooper comment on Xavier Booker\u2019s playing time<\/h3>\n<p>In this episode of The Spiro Avenue Show, Cooper and Hall provided a very good perspective on the whole situation regarding Xavier Booker\u2019s playing time. Cooper and Hall are there every day at practice, so they know more about what\u2019s going on than anyone else.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about Booker&#8217;s playing time, Cooper began by saying, <span class=\"s1\">\u201cA lot of it is kind of matchups as well. I think Ohio State really was a good spot for him to gain that confidence to keep playing well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is how a lot of fans, myself included, felt after the <a href=\"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/michigan-state-basketball-good-great-bad-and-ugly-from-home-loss-to-ohio-state\/\">loss to Ohio State<\/a> as well. We understand it depends on the opponent, but Booker seemed to match up well with Ohio State and was finding success, but <a href=\"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/xavier-booker-reacts-to-lack-of-second-half-playing-time-vs-osu\/\">he still didn\u2019t play in the second half<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Carson continued by talking about the different looks that Booker gives the team, saying \u201c<span class=\"s1\">It\u2019s nice to have a guy like that available to us because it gives us different looks.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Hall then quickly jumped in, saying \u201cEverybody on our team kind of gives like a different look when they\u2019re on the floor at the center position. For me regardless, I\u2019m riding with coach\u2019s decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That last part is what\u2019s the most important to Cooper and Hall. And that\u2019s exactly how they ended the conversation about Booker\u2019s playing time.<\/p>\n<h3>Both Cooper and Hall are riding with Izzo<\/h3>\n<p>Malik Hall really hit home regarding the fans&#8217; criticism of Izzo\u2019s handling of Booker during the Ohio State game. Hall shared <span class=\"s1\">\u201cX would\u2019ve given us a different look being able to play on the perimeter\u2026 but coach thought Mady was best so Mady was in the game.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Cooper also jumped in again, saying <span class=\"s1\">\u201cI think a lot of it was him (Izzo) trusting his veterans.\u201d This was the best answer I could think of too after the OSU game as to why Booker didn\u2019t play late. It still doesn\u2019t make a ton of sense to me, but according to Malik, it doesn\u2019t have to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cAt the end of the day coach is there watching us every day at practice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s where I always end up when thinking about this topic. Izzo is there with the team every single day, while we only see them during games. He must have good reasons why he isn\u2019t playing Booker more. At the end of the day, we just need to trust him, because as fans that\u2019s all we can do.<\/p>\n<p>Izzo is a Hall of Famer for a reason, so maybe it\u2019s time we start fully trusting him again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;d they have to say?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":15364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[225,200,190,189,504,285],"class_list":["post-15354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-carson-cooper","tag-malik-hall","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-news","tag-xavier-booker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15354","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=15354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}