Michigan State basketball gets unlucky draw with upcoming schedule

Michigan State basketball got an unlucky draw with the upcoming schedule. This upcoming slate won’t be a cakewalk.

Michigan State basketball has a tough two game stretch approaching. The Spartans travel to Northwestern on Jan. 7 for a rare late night Sunday game. A few days after later, Michigan State will travel back to the state of Illinois to take on the Illini in a late game on Thursday night.

One reason these games will be difficult is because both opponents are very good. Northwestern is 10-3 overall and 1-1 in the Big Ten and have the only win over Purdue this season. Illinois is even better than Northwestern in my opinion. They are 11-3 and 2-1 in conference play. Their one Big Ten loss came at the hands of Purdue where they found themselves down by 21 points only to come all the way back to only lose by five. Doesn’t sound like a bad loss to me.

There is another reason why this stretch of games will be difficult, and it has nothing to do with either team’s play on the court. It all has to do with scheduling. Thanks, Big Ten.

Unlucky scheduling

For the most part, schedulers try to line about opponents schedules so one team doesn’t have a lot more rest than the other leading into the game. As an example, if MSU and Michigan play each other on a Saturday, they will likely play their last game before this matchup around the same day. This just makes things more fair so both teams have similar rest and prep time going into the game.

This is not the case for Michigan State’s next two games.

Both Northwestern and Illinois have two extra days of rest compared to what MSU has. The Spartans take on Northwestern Sunday and our last game was against Penn State on Thursday. However, the Wildcats last game was Tuesday, giving them two extra days of rest.

Illinois will also get this same luxury. Their last game was Friday night, meaning they have six days of rest before our matchup on Thursday. The Spartans, however, play on Sunday and again have two less days of rest.

To make matters worse, we are the away team in each matchup. So we have less rest and prep time only to also have to get on a plane to travel as well. Whereas our opponent gets those extra rest days at the comfort of their homes.

MSU still can’t use this as an excuse

I won’t use this as an excuse. Tom Izzo obviously won’t care about it either. You still just need to find a way to win. But this is some really unlucky scheduling.

I haven’t looked ahead at our schedule to see if we get a favorable draw in the future, but I’d like to think something like this evens out across an entire season. Regardless, Michigan State basketball has two tough games with some unlucky scheduling in front of them. If you ask me, that’ll just make it that much better if we find a way to win both.