Michigan State Basketball: The good, great, bad, and ugly from loss to No. 1 Kansas

Michigan State basketball participated in their annual Champions Classic, this year taking on Bill Self and the No. 1 team. Kansas, clearly a national championship favorite, has already been tested playing North Carolina. Michigan State, on the other hand, hadn’t so there were many unknowns going into this game. After an ugly first half from both teams, one in which MSU did a good job keeping it close, it was the Jayhawks who got their offense figured out down the stretch and came away with a 77-69 win over the Spartans. 

There’s been plenty of talk on whether or not MSU belongs in the Champions Classic each year, and while the Spartans may not have had the blue blood success since 2019, we still have a Tom Izzo led team and will be competitive.

So here’s the good, great, bad, and ugly from Michigan State’s loss to Kansas.

Good: Frankie Fidler’s ability to get to the line

When scouting Frankie Fidler before he played for Izzo and the Spartans, one of his best skills that was reported on was his ability to get to the line. He always did a great job getting into the lane, getting his defender in the air, and drawing the foul. The main question I, and others, had was whether he would be able to get those calls in the tougher, more physical Big Ten.

While that’s still yet to be seen until Big Ten play begins, he did a great job at getting to the line against Kansas. 

Fidler led the way for the Spartans at getting to the line, attempting eight free throw attempts. Even more important, once there, he hit all eight of them. He has had a somewhat slow beginning to his Spartan career, which is expected, but he is doing what he does best to still affect the game. From early on in the night, Bill Self was forced to sit certain players because they had gotten into foul trouble.

To force Self to get creative with his lineups, while also hitting from the line at a 100 percent clip is a nice tool for Izzo to have in Fidler.

Great: The backcourt of Jeremy Fears and Jace Richardson

Since Cassius Winston left East Lansing, Michigan State basketball hasn’t had much to be excited for in terms of point guards. A.J Hoggard was quite controversial and Tre Holloman never was the answer, in my opinion. We’ve had good two guards to go along with the subpar point guard play, i.e Tyson Walker, but it’s been quite some time since the Spartans have had an elite one-two punch in the backcourt.

Spartan fans might have that in Jeremy Fears and Jase Richardson. 

We highlighted Fears in our Monmouth edition of good, great, bad, and ugly, and Jace Richardson made an appearance in Niagara’s article so it makes sense they make it together here. The two of them seem to play so well together, but also individually. Fears paced the way in terms of minutes last night, finishing with 27 minutes on the night. In the 27 minutes, he finished with nine points and six assists, while also aiding Fidler in getting Kansas into foul trouble. 

Richardson came off the bench for Tom and added eight points, three rebounds, two assists, and hit maybe one of the most important plays in the game. He had a four point play with just over one second remaining in the first half that likely kept Kansas from breaking the game open in the second half. Jace has obviously already earned the trust of Izzo, and is playing freshman minutes we haven’t seen since Rocket Watts. 

Both players have plenty to work on, but given their young age, confidence, and abilities, this duo will feed families down the line. 

Bad: Senior offense

Without a doubt, Jaden Akins will be one of the most frustrating players for Michigan State basketball this year. We have seen him go nuclear against random opponents. He is just a few years removed from being one of the best three point shooters in the Big Ten, and has the athleticism to jump out of the gym. And yet, he still has far too many games in which he is nonexistent, as he was last night against Kansas. 

Akins is MSU’s senior leader. There was plenty of discussion when Tyson Walker was here about whether the offense should go through him or Akins, and Jaden has done nothing to take advantage of the star guard having graduated. On one of the biggest stages he’ll see this year, Akins finished with two (!!) points, one rebound, one block, and two turnovers on just 1-of-8 shooting. He was 0-for-4 from three, but he wasn’t the only one who struggled out there and we’ll get into that in a minute, but if Akins has even an average game, the scoring results are likely vastly different. 

Maybe there was something else going on, maybe Akins is under the weather and not 100 percent, but this team doesn’t have enough star power for their senior leader to take the night off.

Ugly: 3-point shooting

At this point, for the sake of these articles, we may have to begin ignoring the three point shooting because it seems our ugly will just be 3-point shooting after each game. Week after week, they seem to out-do themselves in shooting as poorly as possible from three. 

The Spartans shot 16.7% from three against Monmouth. Last week, they were 33 percent from deep. We pointed out the slight improvement in our last good, great, bad, and ugly article, but also mentioned that 33 percent wouldn’t get it done down the stretch. They followed that up with a 12.5% performance against Kansas. They struggled to hit from all over the court, but the miss after miss after miss from three were backbreaking. 

Unfortunately, this is not a new issue, as Michigan State basketball has struggled to shoot the 3-ball consistently for years now. Gone are the days of Bryn Forbes breaking the single-game Big Ten 3-point record. Gone are the Matt McQuaids who are automatic along the wing. Gone are the Cassius Winston fastbreak step-back daggers. If Michigan State is ever to get Tom his second championship, someone will need to step up and catch fire.