Big Ten Preview: Is It Michigan State's Turn At The Top?

The long wait will soon be over when the first full slate of NCAA basketball games of the 2013-14 season will tip-off on Nov. 8. Some of our favorite players have moved on the ranks of professional athletes, new recruits have been polishing their games in gyms with recognizable logos on the court, and schools have switched conference allegiances. Through a series of conference previews, the BDD crew will do its best to prepare you for the next 4.5 months of collegiate hoops.

Gary Harris and Michigan State are loaded and ready to reclaim the Big Ten crown. (iusportcom.com)

Five Big Ten ballers were drafted in June, four went in the first round and three in the lottery. Will the nation's "best conference" defend this imaginary title and send seven teams into the NCAA tourney again? While things appear to be thinner at the top, the depth remains strong and some squads (I'm lookin at you, Hoosiers) may thrive under lower expectations. This year, however, Tom Izzo will be the coach carrying the weight of Final Four expectations.

Favorite: Michigan State
A year after watching Indiana finish first in the regular season, seeing Ohio State win the conference tournament, and (worst of all for Spartans fans) viewing the big brother Wolverines in the national title game, Sparty should have more to cheer about this year as Gary Harris returns for what could be a very memorable sophomore season. The 6'4" guard was second on the team in minutes last year and was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year, but nagging shoulder injuries blunted his effectiveness. Adreian Payne also returns as a top shot blocker with a great free throw stroke and surprising range from the floor. Swingman Branden Dawson, like Harris, is very talented and should break out this year if he can stay healthy. Point guard Keith Appling continued to tease and frustrate Spartan fans with his mercurial shooting and decision-making. In his senior year, will Appling cede to Harris in the backcourt? Izzo will earn his pay if he can smooth everything over and get his team to make the deep run their talent demands.

Dark Horse Team to Watch: Iowa
Ohio State should be nipping at the Spartans' heels all year, but in the spirit of picking an actual dark horse and not a runner-up, I'm going with the Hawkeyes. Coach Fran McCaffery has been rebuilding in Iowa City with an entertaining brand of ball, but it will be a disappointing setback if they don't get into the NCAAs in his fourth season. The NIT runner-up Hawkeyes return all of their key contributors; only seven starts from big man Eric May must be replaced this year. Roy Devyn Marble (yes, that is Roy's kid) had an up-and-down year and was actually benched at times by McCaffery, but he finished on a high note and his ability to get to the line and stretch a defense are crucial for this team. Aaron White is another quality player causing mismatch problems for opposing defenses, and four-star recruit (and 7-footer) Adam Woodbury should start to assert himself more in his sophomore season. The shooting of sophomore guards Mike Gesell and Anthony Clemmens will need to improve for the Hawkeyes to reach their full potential and dance into the Sweet 16 for the first time since Dr. Tom Davis helmed the Hawkeyes in 1999.

Player of the Year: Gary Harris (Michigan State)
Aaron Craft will be your broadcaster choice, but thankfully most of them don't get to vote on anything. Glenn Robinson and Sam Dekker should also contend here. That said, the best player on the best team generally wins this award, and Harris is my prime choice here. Harris has great size for a scoring guard in college, and with his shooting and athletic ability he should be getting to the free throw line much more often this year. As the featured option in the Spartan attack, his points per game should improve quite a bit. It will be interesting to see if he can show more playmaking ability, as nba scouts would be keen to have more examples on tape.

Coach of the Year: Fran McCaffery (Iowa)
In this conference there will always be a lot of qualified candidates who have already won this award, which actually makes it easier for voters to justify giving the nod to a "new guy" in the mix. Iowa is loaded up to take the next step, and McCaffery knows it. A Tuesday night showdown hosting the Spartans on January 28 could be a statement win.

Newcomer of the Year: Derrick Walton (Michigan) 
Replacing the national player of the year is a tall order, but Walton will only be asked to help steer what should still be a prolific offense under coach John Beilein. Mitch McGary, Glenn Robinson and Nik Stauskas will give Walton plenty of passing targets, and the true freshman point guard should show enough 3 point range to keep defenses honest as well.



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History Says Don't Doubt A Tom Izzo Michigan State Team

Tom Izzo always finds a way to get his teams ready for March. (usatoday.com)

Tom Izzo-led Michigan State teams are always dangerous, this year included, and one of the main reasons can be linked to an unlikely source: early-season losses.

It’s a formula that Michigan State fans probably don’t particularly enjoy. It causes a bit more stress and worry in November, but the end result surely makes up for the early heartache. It seems that over the past half decade or so, Michigan State drops a couple early games, usually due to the strenuous schedule Izzo puts together on a yearly basis, yet the Spartans bounce back and make a run into the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments. Don't believe me? Let's take a look:

2008-09
Michigan State had two losses to Maryland and No. 1 UNC by Dec. 3 and lost two more to non-ranked Big Ten teams Northwestern and Penn State by Feb. 1, yet advanced all the way to the National Championship game where the Spartans fell to UNC.

2009-10
Again, a No. 11 UNC team gets the better of Michigan State early, as well as Florida and No. 2 Texas as MSU has three losses before Christmas. Even a three-game losing streak in early February didn’t stop Izzo’s club from making a run in March and reaching the Final Four.

2010-11
This was a down year for the Spartans, who struggled all season, failing to reach the 20-game win mark and lost in the first round of the tournament to seven-seed UCLA. It's nearly impossible for a program to keep a level of success this high every year.

2011-12
Back-to-back losses to No. 1 UNC and No. 6 Duke to start the season had the country writing off Michigan State early. Maybe part of the reason was the poor play of the season before, but the Spartans fell off the radar early on, despite not losing again until Jan. 14. MSU was definitely on people’s radars late in the year, winning the Big Ten Tournament and advancing to the Sweet 16 before eventual-Final-Four member Louisville ended the Spartans season.

2012-13
This year has been mostly the same. The Spartans lost the first game of the year to a UCONN team that was without Jim Calhoun for the first time and facing NCAA sanctions. Despite winning against Kansas the following game, MSU then lost to Miami in late November (now this doesn’t seem bad but hindsight is 20/20) and then No. 9 Minnesota (this one looks a bit worse now) on the road on New Year's Eve. Yet since 2013 began, the Spartans have only lost one game to now-No. 1, then-No. 7 Indiana and have wins over No. 11 Ohio State, No. 18 Minnesota and No. 4 Michigan. The Spartans have regained a spot in the top 10 and are one of the hottest teams in the country.

Which brings us to our valuable lesson. The season is a long one, and a team can be very different in March than it was in November, especially if it is coached by a man like Izzo. His teams consistently improve throughout the course of the season and seem to use early losses as lessons on toughness and how to get better. Many of the losses covered above were to very talented and highly ranked opponents, which Izzo is known to scatter throughout the schedule to give his players a taste of what it’s like to play the best of the best. Izzo’s trial-by-fire approach means his Spartan teams have experienced it all, and while the record won’t always be as pretty as others, his teams will always be ready for when it counts in March.

Yet people still tend to look past the Spartans after the second or third early loss each year and Izzo keeps proving why that is not wise. As we get closer to Selection Sunday, go ahead and throw Michigan State into the pile of teams that could make a run at the Final Four, because recent history has proven discounting this program before March is rarely a smart decision.

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Latest Conference Realignment: Two Points We've Learned And When It Will Stop

You won't see this image much longer, as Louisville is off to the ACC. (sbnation.com)

It all seemed so clear three years ago.

The Big East was the powerhouse of college basketball conferences, with the ACC and Big 12 not far behind. Now the thought of who will be a member of the Big East in two years seems like a question fitting for Jeopardy! or a Magic 8-Ball.

As of this post's publishing, Louisville was the latest large athletic department to jump ship and head to the ACC. (I said "at the post's publishing" because it seems like a move happens every 12 minutes; I said "large athletic department" because Tulane's not shaking up people's lives like Syracuse; and I said "athletic department" because we all know this isn't about academics. It's about money generating from football and basketball.)

Fans want to know when it will stop, and most likely, the answer isn't any time soon, and not until one of the six major conferences no longer exists. The Big East is trying to stay above water after losing West Virginia and the eventual loss of Syracuse, Pitt and Louisville, but its emergency plan has turned it into Conference USA 2.0.

Instead of predicting the future, which is nearly impossible when involving conference realignment, let's talk about two points that we do know.

1.  ACC basketball is the new Big East
Think about where the Big East was a couple of years ago. The eighth and ninth best teams in the conference could still get into the NCAA Tournament (or win the National Title, if you're Big East Tournament ninth-seeded UCONN circa 2011) and the Big East Tournament was amazing to watch because great teams like Georgetown and Notre Dame could square off in a quarter-final game.

The ACC isn't quite as stacked from top to bottom, but this is not a league that will have a clear favorite every year. It already had arguably the greatest rivalry in the game with Duke and North Carolina, and now throws in Syracuse, Louisville and Pitt, who have all been near the top in the country in the past five years. Maybe even more impressive is the list of coaches now in the conference. Krzyzewski, Boeheim, Williams and Pitino all coaching against each other? If you're looking for a better group of Hall of Fame coaches, good luck finding it.

2. The old conference lineups are not coming back
We all get nostalgic thinking about the conference and the teams in it we grew up watching. While I wish the Big East wasn't crumbling and the Big 12 could have remained with 12 schools like it was when I was a kid, it will never be the same again. But 10 years after all this settles down, what we now view as new and weird will seem familiar. Until then, try not to get too attached. It really doesn't feel like many teams are safe from a move, and we've definitely learned that geography doesn't matter anymore (San Diego State in the Big East?). It doesn't seem right for Maryland to be in the Big Ten or Pitt to be in the ACC, but new opportunities and benefits will arise and new rivalries will form.

To expect the unexpected is the easiest mindset to be in as we wait and see what else shakes up, and until then, enjoy the conference your favorite team is in and try to find a silver lining in a possible move.


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Big Ten Preview: Can Cody Zeller Lead Indiana To A Big Ten Championship?

The long wait will soon be over when the first official NCAA basketball game of the 2012-13 season will tip-off on Nov. 15. Some of our favorite players have moved on the ranks of professional athletes, new recruits have been polishing their games in gyms with recognizable logos on the court, and schools have switched conference allegiances. Through a series of conference previews, the BDD crew will do its best to prepare you for the next 4.5 months of collegiate hoops.

Jared Sullinger isn't around to guard Indiana's Cody Zeller any more. (USA Today)

Conference Champion: Indiana Hoosiers

Last season, Indiana earned the designation of being the only team to beat eventual NCAA champion Kentucky. The regular season victory was a precursor to the Hoosiers' Sweet 16 run, both of which could serve as standards for the team this season.

Tom Crean's group of veterans is comprised of eight returning players, including all five starters. The No. 5 recruiting class won't hurt things either, with five-star point guard Kevin Ferrell and four-star small forward Jeremy Hollowell setting the Hoosiers up for success in the foreseeable future.

Stocked with talent, they should breeze through the non-conference schedule — with the only potential exceptions coming on team buses with North Carolina and Butler — before setting themselves up for official re-anointment as the class of the Big Ten.

Indiana needs to shore up their collective defensive inabilities, and dropping games to Michigan State and a resurgent Michigan Wolverines squad is not out of the question, but the Hoosiers will take advantage of the rest of the conference during a season in which teams 4-12 could end up almost anywhere in the Big Ten rankings come the end of regular season play.

Dark Horse Team to Watch: Ohio State Buckeyes

Outside of the conference's clear-cut top three teams, the Big Ten is a bit anomalous, but not so much so that Ohio State reigning over its peers is out of the question. Jared Sullinger is no longer around to be an All-American security blanket in the paint, and this will be the first season in four years that the Buckeyes play a game without newly-graduated shooting guard William Buford, but Aaron Craft is one of college basketball's most reliable point guards. He'll have to provide the bulk of leadership in his junior year and Craft's commitment to defense should inspire younger teammates.

Ohio State's default on-court second-in-command is forward Deshaun Thomas who averaged 15.9 points and 5.4 rebounds per game last season. Expect Thomas to up the stat line as some of the touches that formerly belonged to Sullinger come his way.

Seven other players from last season's Final Four team return, but if the Buckeyes are to truly contend, Thomas will have to simultaneously ascend to clutch performer status and be more willing to spread the ball around instead of trying to shoulder the scoring load. In turn, the Buckeyes' role players must elevate their respective games.

It sounds like a hypothetical title run depends on many changes, and it would if Ohio State is to get the best of the Hoosiers, Spartans and Wolverines. If Thad Matta is the coach and recruiter he is believed to be, though, a Big Ten championship is not out of the question just yet. 

Player of the Year: Cody Zeller, Indiana 

True seven-footers are rare. That alone tells you that Zeller is something special, but his dedication to working out and adding muscle over the summer is indicative of a motivation that goes beyond brawn.

Crean’s plan to mix in more pick-and-roll plays bodes well for Zeller, who could demolish his freshmen year watermark of 15.6 points per game if the coaching reins are loosened. The same goes for the 6.6 rebounds per game he established last season if he really has added proper bulk.

Zeller’s already a National Player of the Year candidate based on his performance over 33 games on the collegiate level, so there’s no way a conference POY award is a hard sell.

Newcomer of the Year: Sam Dekker, Wisconsin

Any Big Ten team that brings in noteworthy recruits already seems to have an established hierarchy amongst players, but Badgers head coach Bo Ryan works magic with small forwards and while Wisconsin is returning most of the key parts from a Sweet 16 team, Dekker will instantly add a new layer to the dynamics.

He’ll play big minutes as a freshman and be expected to bear the scoring load on occasion. After all, his offensive prowess is what earned the in-state recruit a Mr. Basketball title and a No. 17-overall ranking in the ESPNU 100. Add the trademark defensive-mindedness that Ryan requires of his players and Dekker could be the Big Ten’s best all-around freshman.

Coach of the Year: Tom Crean, Indiana

If Indiana lives up to expectations – and given the nature of college basketball, let alone the Big Ten, that could be a big if – they could have a conference championship and a national title to tout when the 2012-13 season is done.

A potent offense. Team chemistry that allows players to excel more as a collective than as individuals. These are characteristics the Hoosiers will possess. They do not have to play blustering defense, but if the team makes even mild improvements on that end of game, they will be applauded.

If Crean is to win this accolade, it will be for his work over multiple years of recruiting and bringing a program with storied history back to the forefront of college basketball. The Hoosiers could achieve only 75 percent of what pundits are predicting and that would still be enough to bring Crean COY recognition.


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