Michigan State Basketball: Good, great, bad, and ugly from Alcorn State win

Michigan State basketball beat Alcorn State 81-49, improving to 3-2 thanks to back-to-back wins over the weekend.

On Sunday evening, Michigan State basketball was able to put together their first back to back wins on the young season. The Spartans looked great on Friday against a decent Butler team, and looked even better in their second win of the weekend against Alcorn State.

After going down in the very beginning 5-3, Michigan State opened the floodgates and ripped off a 21-3 run. Finishing the first half on a 39-8 streak, Michigan State never truly felt the pressure from the Alcorn State Braves. Thanks to all scholarship players scoring five points or more, the Spartans cruised to an 81-49 victory over a good SWAC opponent. 

There were definitely some great things coming from the win at the Breslin, but also a few that will need to be cleaned up going into the holiday week.

Let’s go over the good, great, bad, and ugly from Michigan State’s Sunday evening victory. 

Good: Play from mix of freshman and veterans

MSU got off to a hot start. The Spartans found themselves up by almost 20 with 10 minutes remaining in the first half. Because of this, Izzo was able to use the game as an experimental, training matchup for most of the remaining time. This season we have seen almost all freshman lineups, mostly due to the veterans underperforming so Izzo pulled them. All freshman lineups can often be stagnant and extremely ineffective thanks simply to their lack of experience at this next level. Bad habits can be formed during these situations, so they are definitely not ideal. 

On Sunday evening, however, Michigan State was able to look to their young guys early thanks to great performances and the large lead put together by the starters. This allowed Tom to begin mixing in the freshman with the veterans. Allowing them to play together gives the veterans a challenge to get the new guys involved, but also does exactly that. It gets the new guys involved as the veteran juniors and seniors facilitate. Slowly being able to rotate Coen Carr, Jeremy Fears, and Xavier Booker through the lineup while AJ Hoggard, Malik Hall, and Jaden Akins guide them on the court is a great way to develop your young players.