Michigan State<\/a> have been very obvious. Big Ten championships and Final Fours. And MSU has accomplished a lot in those two categories. But the Spartans have failed to win a championship or make the Final Four in four straight seasons now, and they honestly haven\u2019t been close to either.<\/p>\nI think fans have the right to question what this program\u2019s expectations should be after this rough stretch. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s time to adjust those expectations. As long as Tom Izzo is the head coach in East Lansing, there\u2019s always hope that he will get MSU back on top. Maybe if he retires and his replacement struggles then we can adjust our expectations, but I\u2019m not ready to do that until then.<\/p>\n
Izzo has also had stretches similar to this in the past. MSU\u2019s gone from 2001-09 without winning the conference as well as from 2012-18. So in that regard this stretch hasn\u2019t even been that bad yet. Izzo has gotten MSU out of bad times before, and I fully expect him to do it again.<\/p>\n
Expectations for next year<\/h3>\n
As I mentioned, expectations at Michigan State are to win championships and make Final Fours. However, I don\u2019t think that should be the expectation next season. It\u2019s been four years since MSU\u2019s accomplished either, so I don\u2019t think we can expect it to magically happen all of a sudden. Is it possible to happen? Absolutely. Realistic? Not quite yet.<\/p>\n
But that doesn\u2019t mean we should expect another terrible season either. Next season I think the expectations should be to compete for a Big Ten title. The Spartans need to be in the thick of the race for the Big Ten title at the end of the season. If they lose by a game or two so be it, but they need to prove they are one of the best in the conference.<\/p>\n
Michigan State also needs to comfortably make the NCAA Tournament, another thing they haven\u2019t done in four years. They need to earn a top four seed and make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. If they don\u2019t make the Final Four, that\u2019s OK, but they need to make the second weekend.<\/p>\n
This is a very dangerous time for the program. The nation is starting to lose respect for Michigan State basketball and a lot of fans are losing hope. Next year is massive for the program\u2019s, and Tom Izzo\u2019s, reputation. But I have full faith they will bounce back and make a lot of noise next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We believe in Tom Izzo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":16935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[190,189,504,211],"class_list":["post-16886","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\/16886","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=16886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}