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On Campus — Basketball schedule unbelievably brutal

By: Jacob Carpenter Posted: 09/07/08 8:27pm

Tom Izzo and the masochist who does the scheduling for the MSU men’s basketball team must have been pretty angry when they laid out their 2008-09 slate of games.

They must have wanted to punish, break down and destroy the ego of the entire team by arranging a daunting schedule that would make most teams shake in their hightops.

MSU opens the season with two games against JV squads — Idaho and IPFW — before walking into a gauntlet of state high school champions.

The schedule includes games against Maryland, Gonzaga or Oklahoma State (depending on tournament play), North Carolina, Texas, Kansas and possibly Tennessee or Georgetown.

In this decade, those eight teams have won three NCAA championships and made a combined 11 Final Four appearances (with Gonzaga and Tennessee not accounting for any of those 11). As of April’s AP Top 25 poll, six of those eight teams were ranked, including North Carolina (No. 1), Kansas (No. 4), Tennessee (No. 5), Texas (No. 7) and Georgetown (No. 9).

This year’s schedule is a return to the traditional Izzo philosophy: You find out your weaknesses early in the season by playing top-tier talent before getting into the Big Ten schedule.

While not all of those eight teams will play the No. 18 Spartans because of nonconference tournaments, we will know how this young MSU squad will react to pressure situations come March. With only three seniors (big men Marquise Gray, Idong Ibok and Goran Suton) and a young backcourt, any semblance of cockiness will be dashed by January when a few losses pop up in the standings.

Fans might moan this winter over the poor nonconference record that could ensue from such a difficult draw. But come Madness time, the Spartans will know where they stand among the powers that be in the NCAA.

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Commentary:

Jason

09/08/08 8:09am

Maybe you forgot about our other senior…probably the most important since he was a CO-CAPTAIN last year…ever heard of Travis Walton? So 4 seniors, 3 of which have extensive playing time…not to mention our returning depth at every position…I love that we have so many high profile games…UNC will probably be ranked #1 preseason, and deservedly so…all of the other teams will be tough, but I don’t see any of them being as good as they were last year…Kansas lost almost everyone (including a couple pot-heads), Tennessee, Texas and Georgetown all lost their best players (watch for the frosh center that came to GTown though…he’ll be way better than Hibbart)…on top of that, we’ll probably be a top 10, maybe even top 5 team.

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jers

09/08/08 4:00pm

Travis Walton is a joke…..an outstanding athelete that can not seem to score, play defense or hold on to the ball. Kalin Lucas plays more like a senior should than that Travis Walton does. This winter is the Kalin show and travis will have front row tickets to WATCH

Charles Miller

09/10/08 8:53am

I thought your comments were interesting Jacob, but this is a typical Izzo schedule. I liked Jason’s take also. I have been a fan since the early 1950’s when I was sports editor of the SNEWS, but my remaks didn’t get much farther than Shaw Hall at the time.