Michigan State Basketball: Top 7 transfer options for Spartans to consider
By Ryan Kay
To put last season in perspective, Izzo as the head coach of the Spartans had his worse finish ever in the Big Ten when he and his team finished tied for 8th place. Michigan State Basketball under Izzo finished in 7th place twice in Big Ten play but never below that.
Last season was also the first time under Izzo that the Spartans finished with a losing record in conference play. Five times Michigan State has finished conference play with a .500 record with Izzo as the coach but last season was the first time the Spartans end conference play below the .500 mark. But that wasn’t the worse part.
Izzo has been anointed “Mr. March” for good reason as he has overall done very well in the month of March. He and the Spartans have won outright and or right three out of the last four seasons a Big Ten conference championship. He has lead Michigan State to 23 straight NCAA tournament appearances with 14 Sweet Sixteen, 10 Elite Eight, and a remarkable eight Final Four Appearances. He did help lead the Spartans to a National Championship in 2000. However, last season’s NCAA tournament results were a first.
To be fair, Izzo and Michigan State did not qualify for the NCAA tournament in his first two years as the head coach of the Spartans in 96 and 97. However, last season was the first time under Izzo that Michigan State did not qualify for the round of 64. The Spartans lost in overtime to UCLA in one of the first four games of the NCAA tournament.
Had they defeated the Bruins, Michigan State had a very achievable path to the Sweet Sixteen. Once again to be fair, UCLA went to the Final Four and took Gonzaga to overtime but the Spartans’ play in the regular season put them in one of the first four tournament games.
The whole point and argument is that Michigan State is at a cross in the roads going into next season. They have an opportunity to get better or they can not utilize their final two scholarships that they have available and face similar results as last season.
The Spartans are a Blue Blood program put last season showed that other programs similar to them like Duke, North Carolina, and Kentucky are not guaranteed to win a ton of games every season because of the name across their jerseys. Let’s look at the current overall player personnel before we look at possible transfers.