Michigan State basketball: Freshman trio stands out against Stony Brook

The trio of Michigan State basketball freshmen stood out on Thursday night against Stony Brook. This was a good sign.

What a perfect time this is for the freshmen to start playing well. With Big Ten play right around the corner, the Michigan State basketball freshmen have limited time to get accumulated to the college game before the season ramps up even more. Thankfully for us, they all look like they’re ready.

All three freshmen played extremely well in their own ways during Thursday night’s 99-55 victory over Stony Brook.

Let’s take a look at the numbers and see how they did.

Xavier Booker

Xavier Booker impressed me the most by far. Out of the three freshmen playing this season, he has seen the least amount of playing time. Against Stony Brook, however, he played 16 minutes and recorded a team high seven rebounds. He also had career-highs in points and blocks with 11 and three, respectively.

Booker was all over the court last night. I know this was against a weaker opponent, but Booker did what he was supposed to do in this type of matchup. He dominated the glass, was extremely effective on the defensive end and scored a lot of points. We haven’t seen this version of Booker yet this season, so to see this now, even against a weak opponent, is great to see.

Jeremy Fears

Jeremy Fears’ performance last night probably went a little under the radar. He only scored one point, but he still contributed in a big way. Similarly to Booker, Fears led the team in one category on Thursday (assists), tied with AJ Hoggard at 10. This is probably the first time in a long time that we’ve had freshmen lead the team in two of the three major statistics in the same game.

We won’t need to rely on Fears to be our leading scorer this season. But what we do need to rely on Fears for is to come off the bench and keep the offense operating effectively. Ten assists shows that he did that at an extremely high level. Jeremy was 0-for-3 shooting the ball last night which is something that needs to be worked on. But if we can get 10 assists from him in a game, then I don’t really care how many points he scores.

Coen Carr

Coen Carr had a pretty standard Coen Carr game Thursday night. He had eight points and six rebounds and was a perfect 3-for-3 from the field. Those three buckets, in true Carr fashion, were all dunks. Six rebounds is also a really good number for him as well and shows that he played his role last night to perfection.

Carr’s role on this team is to bring that extra athleticism nobody else on the team has. Carr can do this by getting a lot of rebounds and high-flying dunks to keep the energy in the game. The thing I liked the most about his game last night was that he didn’t try to do too much. Coen knows his role and executed it to perfection. He knows he’s not a 3-point shooter for this team, so he waited for his moments around the rim and dominated the glass. That’s the Carr we need every night.

Even though Stony Brook was a weak opponent, Tom Izzo has to love what he saw from his freshmen. In games like this, we need to flex our muscles and dominate start to finish. That’s exactly what we did on Thursday night, and these three freshmen were major contributors to that.