Mady Sissoko vs. Indiana State is exactly what Michigan State basketball needs

Mady Sissoko played a great game against Indiana State and Michigan State basketball needs more of that version of him.

Mady Sissoko, in the eyes of a lot of Michigan State basketball fans, has had a very up and down career. I feel like a lot of people wish he could be more of a threat on the offensive end, but that development just hasn’t happened yet in East Lansing.

However, I think Sissoko had his best game of the season so far in MSU’s 87-75 win over Indiana State. Mady didn’t score a lot of points, but he had timely buckets. He also played solid defense and limited his mistakes. But it was what he did on the glass that makes me super excited.

Mady Sissoko dominates the glass

Mady finished Saturday’s win over Indiana State with six points and a season-high 12 rebounds. Six points is right on par with his season average, but his 12 rebounds about doubles his average. Even more impressively for Sissoko was that he accounted for nearly 30 percent of the Spartans’ total rebounds. Now that is exactly what you want to see from your starting center.

Twelve rebounds is a great number no matter when they come in the game. But a majority of Sissoko’s rebounds came at the perfect time. With about 5:30 to go in the game, Sissoko bobbled a pass from Tyson Walker that went out of bounds, missing out on a wide open dunk. Instead of getting upset with himself, he came back and finished with seven of his 12 rebounds in the final 5:30 of the game. With the game still in question, Sissoko had timely rebound after timely rebound, helping MSU pull away even if he wasn’t scoring.

Here is his first of seven monster rebounds to close the game.

Really loved this moment on the rewatch. Sissoko had just bobbled the Walker dish out of bounds and Walker lets him know to forget it. He responds with a monster board and finishes the last 5:18 snagging 7 of his 12 total rebounds👏🏼 👏🏼 pic.twitter.com/iXo1ewiuI1

— DK (@SpartanHoops_DK) December 31, 2023

This is what MSU needs from Mady

Saturday’s game is exactly what Michigan State basketball needs from Sissoko this season. He will never be someone that will score a lot of points, as seen by only hitting double figures twice this year. He also isn’t the greatest passer either. But he can be an elite rebounder and shot blocker.

He didn’t demonstrate his shot-blocking abilities last night, but that’s not the end of the world. However, we do need him to dominate on the glass every night. We need that from him both on the defensive end to not give up second chance opportunities and on the offensive end to create more opportunities for us. Then, as we saw on Saturday night, he needs to get the big rebounds to help close the game out.

It may not feel like it sometimes, but Sissoko is an extremely important piece to this team. He is the best rebounder and post defender the Spartans have. Michigan State will seriously challenge for the Big Ten title if we get games like this regularly from Mady.