{"id":16598,"date":"2024-03-19T16:03:27","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T20:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=16598"},"modified":"2024-03-19T16:03:27","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T20:03:27","slug":"former-purdue-player-michigan-state-basketball-in-final-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=16598","title":{"rendered":"Former Purdue player, BTN analyst has Michigan State basketball in Final Four"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Michigan State basketball is going to make a run at the Final Four this year, according to former Purdue star Rapheal Davis.<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/should-michigan-state-basketball-pursue-any-michigan-transfers\/\">Michigan State basketball<\/a> fans aren&#8217;t exactly high on their team heading into the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, the Spartans put together a nice little two-game stretch in the Big Ten Tournament after losing 4-of-5 games to end the regular season, but it didn&#8217;t do enough to calm their nerves on Selection Sunday. Michigan State got the 9-seed in the West Region, matching up with Mississippi State in the first round. A potential second-round matchup with 1-seeded North Carolina is daunting, however.<\/p>\n<p>While Spartan fans aren&#8217;t counting on a big run, a former Purdue star and Big Ten Network analyst believes in Tom Izzo.<\/p>\n<p>Rapheal Davis has Michigan State in his Final Four.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;I&#39;m drinking the Tom Izzo Kool-Aid.&quot;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RaphealDavis3?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@RaphealDavis3<\/a> explains why he has <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MSU_Basketball?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@MSU_Basketball<\/a> going to the Final Four. \u2935\ufe0f<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/B1Gtoday?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#B1Gtoday<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/SvP0sO8oVa\">pic.twitter.com\/SvP0sO8oVa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BigTenNetwork\/status\/1770164308233633878?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 19, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Davis had Michigan State in his Elite Eight on Tuesday morning but he said the more he thought about it, the more he felt a Final Four from this team. He believes the Spartans get by Mississippi State and North Carolina before getting to Alabama where he takes Michigan State&#8217;s guards.<\/p>\n<p>According to Davis, Michigan State &#8220;at their best&#8221; can take down North Carolina and Alabama and make a Final Four.<\/p>\n<p>Fellow BTN analyst Dave Revsine brought up the Baylor game and he and Davis both agreed that at their best, the Spartans can play with and beat anyone. And they&#8217;re not wrong. The Spartans just haven&#8217;t been consistent enough this year. If they play to their potential (the Baylor game), they could make a run to the Final Four in Phoenix.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s interesting to see a former Purdue player so high on Izzo. There&#8217;s plenty of respect there, but you&#8217;d never realize it because Purdue and Michigan State basketball simply do not like each other.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe we should also be drinking the Tom Izzo Kool-Aid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rapheal Davis is drinking the Tom Izzo Kool-Aid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[190,189,504,211],"class_list":["post-16598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-news","tag-tom-izzo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16598","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}