Michigan State basketball<\/a> needs to win. No, their season won\u2019t be over if they lose. Yes, they can still win the Big Ten, make a Final Four, and have a memorable season with a loss. But at the moment, for this fan base, Saturday is a game MSU cannot lose.<\/p>\nFor this team, this is obviously a game MSU has to have. The Big Ten is shaping up to be its usual three-month trench war, with the champion having at least four, probably five, and maybe even six losses. With some of the best home court advantages in the country, holding serve at home is a must. It\u2019s even more critical against the middle of the league.<\/p>\n
This is not a great Michigan team. They come in at just 9-5, ranked 45 in KenPom, currently on the wrong side of the NCAA tournament bubble. With that being said, they are 3-0 in league play. So, this is a big opportunity for MSU to knock off the first-place team at home to keep their own title chances alive.<\/p>\n
For the fans, this has become personal. It\u2019s always personal with Michigan, but Hunter Dickinson\u2019s antics have elevated the stakes. It\u2019s been quite some time since the Michigan basketball program had a villain like Dickinson. Anyone that has been around as long as he has, and is as good of a player as he is will draw criticism from their rival. But Dickinson has fanned the flames with his on court and off court behavior. Between yelling at Tom Izzo in last year\u2019s game, and putting down MSU\u2019s academic standards on a podcast, he has crossed a line with MSU fans. There would be nothing more difficult to swallow than watching him celebrate a victory at Breslin Center. The wounds from Dickinson\u2019s comments are fresh, and this fanbase wants to beat him and Michigan. Badly.<\/p>\n
For the Michigan and Michigan State rivalry in general, this is something MSU fans need to feel good about. The 2022 football season was one of the most difficult seasons to stomach for Spartan fans. Their team stumbled to a 5-7 record while Michigan went undefeated and won the Big Ten. The tunnel incident following Michigan\u2019s beatdown of the Spartans added embarrassment to an already disastrous season. Saturday represents the first opportunity to move on from that game and postgame incident.<\/p>\n
For as much separation as there appears to be between the two football programs, MSU feels that same gap potential is there with basketball. For the first time, there are serious questions about the direction of Juwan Howard\u2019s program. There is a world where he is not the coach at Michigan next season. Michigan State meanwhile, feels as if they have another vintage Izzo team on deck given the talent on the roster this year combined with the freshman class for next season.<\/p>\n
Michigan State fans will settle for any kind of victory. But this has the feeling of a game where winning by a little won\u2019t be enough. MSU fans want demolition. They want to see the Izzone go berserk. They want to see extended minutes from Steven Izzo at the end. <\/span><\/p>\nThree months of frustration stemming from football season will be spewing from the stands and keyboards on Saturday. It\u2019s almost an uncomfortable\u00a0feeling for\u00a0Spartan\u00a0fans,\u00a0knowing how badly they need a\u00a0victory over their\u00a0rival. Losing is not an option.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Spartans have to beat this Michigan team on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[190,189],"class_list":["post-739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739","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\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}