Tom Izzo has high hopes for Michigan State basketball in 2023-24
EAST LANSING — Tom Izzo lamented what could have been, but it was greatly overshadowed by what he envisions ahead for Michigan State basketball:
A chance to chase greatness.
That’s not to say the Hall of Fame coach believes his 29th season is a slam dunk for a second national championship, or even another Big Ten title. Izzo made it clear Purdue remains the team to beat, repeating multiple times Wednesday that the Boilermakers expect to have everyone back from the squad that won the league this winter by three games — and then became just the second No. 1 seed to lose in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
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Izzo’s program isn’t far behind, though, at least not after this week, during which guard Tyson Walker and forward Malik Hall announced they will remain Spartans and take advantage of their extra season of eligibility.
“In a way, I got the perfect team for me,” Izzo said in looking toward the offseason. “I got some veterans, I got some rookies. I got some guys that are, I think, competitive. I think we'll add some toughness to this year's team. I think we'll get healthy. … And I'm embracing the opportunity to be ranked high enough, and I'm embracing the challenge of trying to win another Big Ten championship. And I'm looking forward to the chance to compete for a national championship.”
The retention of the two veterans adds experience to one of Izzo’s best recruiting classes, with two five-star McDonald’s All-Americans (center Xavier Booker and point guard Jeremy Fears Jr.) and two four-star forwards (Coen Carr and Gehrig Normand) arriving in the summer. MSU’s only expected losses are forward Joey Hauser and swingman Pierre Brooks II.
Hall had surgery on his left foot last week in Charlotte, North Carolina. The 6-foot-8, 220-pound senior forward missed 11 games with a stress reaction that lingered and hampered his play all winter. He is expected to be back to full basketball activities by mid-summer.
“He was injured all year, and I think it was not more severe than we thought but just more hindering than we thought,” Izzo said of Hall. “And so when the season ended, he had minor surgery to kind of straighten out the top of that foot as far as what they felt would make it so that he'll never have any problems with it again — which 'never' is always a strange word. But I feel very good about that, he feels good about it. And I think that's gonna really help him, which will definitely help us.”
The 6-foot, 180-pound Walker, who transferred to MSU from Northeastern before the 2021-22 season, comes back for his third season as a Spartan after shifting from point guard to shooting guard. He led MSU at 14.8 points per game with 2.5 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 1.1 steals in 33.9 minutes per game. Hall started five games but came off the bench almost exclusively after his injury, averaging 8.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.2 assists in 25.7 minutes.
“In Tyson's case, I just felt really good listening to him talk to me at the end of the year of what it meant to be in that (NCAA) tournament. ... I think he's grown enormously,” Izzo said. “But Malik is the guy that's been through it all. He's been through injuries a few times, and as he got healthier, we got better. But he never really got back to where he was.”
Still, Izzo knows the current landscape of college sports. That includes the transfer portal, and he watched sophomore Brooks exit his program and head to Butler in the past week. It leaves MSU at 12 scholarship players for the 2023-24 season, barring any surprise defections before the portal window closes May 11.
The Spartans used only 10 of their 13 NCAA-allowable scholarships this season, which led to Walker, Hauser and Hoggard all averaging more than 30 minutes a game and sophomore wing Jaden Akins averaging 27.5 minutes a game after recovering from a September surgery for a stress reaction in his left foot that flared up and cost him four games in November and early December.
Izzo also said a potential exists for at least three of his players — Walker, Akins and junior point guard A.J. Hoggard — to explore the NBA draft process. Players must enter their names by April 23 and have until May 31 to decide whether to remain in the draft or withdraw and return to college. None of those three have made their intentions on that known yet, Izzo said.
Hoggard posted 12.9 points, 3.7 rebounds and 5.9 assists in 30.6 minutes but saved his best for the end of the season. The 6-4, 205-pound point guard averaged 16.1 points and 6.3 assists in MSU’s final eight games and earned All-East region honors in the NCAA tournament.
Akins overcame his foot injury to give the Spartans a three-guard backcourt that was electric at both ends of the court. The 6-4, 190-pound spent most of his time on the wing and averaged 9.8 points, 4 rebounds and 1.2 steals while making 42.2% of his 3-pointers. He scored 13.4 points while hitting 50% from deep over his last seven games.
“I don't know if I'll have some — probably — that I'll put their name into the draft. I think that's the popular thing to do now,” Izzo said. “But I think in general, we should have a pretty solid group coming back with a great group of recruits coming in. And you put those two things together, and it's a lot of optimism for next season.”
In the paint, MSU gets back starting center Mady Sissoko (5.1 points, 6.1 rebounds, 21.4 minutes) and two promising freshmen in 6-9 Jaxon Kohler (3 points, 2.9 rebounds, 10.8 minutes) and 6-11 NCAA tourney standout Carson Cooper (1.6 points, 0.9 rebounds, 6.6 minutes).
“For all three of them, it's a big, big summer,” Izzo said.
Assuming everyone else returns, it will make for a battle for minutes come November. Izzo raved about the addition of Fears, a 6-2, 180-pounder who is ranked as the No. 24 player in the class of 2023 according to 247 Sports' composite rankings. Freshman Tre Holloman averaged 8.6 minutes a game and showed a strong defensive ability.
Fears comes in with three other highly regarded recruits, the most coveted being Booker, a 6-10, 210-pound big man who is ranked No. 8. The 6-7, 200-pound Carr is a rebounding and dunking force ranked No. 53 overall nationally, while the 6-6, 180-pound Normand is a sharpshooting wing ranked No. 104.
“I hope it's incredibly competitive. ... A competitive nature and fighting for something that you want badly as is good,” Izzo said. “And I think this gives us a little chance to be normal. I mean, we weren't normal this year. We not only had 10 on scholarship, but then we had two hurt for some of it, one hurt for a lot of it. So we picked and choosed what we wanted to pick and choose. And you can criticize or commend me for what I decided to do, but I was comfortable with it.
“And yet I am not comfortable with having 10 guys on scholarship. But nor do I think you'll see the day very often there'll be 13 guys on scholarship anymore.”
MSU ended up going 21-13 overall this winter, finishing fourth in the Big Ten at 11-8 before embarking on Izzo’s Division I-record 25th straight NCAA tournament appearance, resulting in his 15th Sweet 16 trip. The Spartans lived up to everything Izzo felt about his team in the preseason and continued to assert throughout the up-and-down year.
That also raises his expectations for next season — maybe it's not title-or-bust for Izzo, but there's certainly an understanding it could be possible.
“It won't be easy. There's teams got a lot more back than we got. There's teams that got better talent that we got,” Izzo said. “I just think I like the chemistry of our team. I'll tell you by the end of the summer whether we're as connected as last year's team was, with a few more players that could add to it.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tom Izzo has high hopes for Michigan State basketball in 2023-24
