GRAHAM COUCH
Couch: For this MSU basketball team to get where it wants to go, it can follow the example set a year ago against Michigan
EAST LANSING – This Michigan State basketball team has the ability to be better than last year's team.
Not just my opinion. Those were MSU assistant coach Dane Fife's exact words on Friday afternoon.
But if this MSU team wants to get to a place where its advantages give it a chance to surpass the level of play and accomplishments of that beloved group from a year ago — which included many of these same players in different roles — facing Michigan Sunday ought to remind the Spartans of when that Final Four run truly began and why.
That 77-70 win over the Wolverines on Feb. 24 in Ann Arbor set the course for a Big Ten championship and seven postseason wins.
"As a whole program I think (that game) established trust," Fife said. "It meshed our staff and our whole team together in that, 'OK, these (coaches) know what they're doing.' And it was for us (coaches), the flip side, 'This team is willing to execute the game plan with complete trust that it's going to win games for them.' It really meshed us, because I don't think coach (Tom) Izzo had had operated that style of defense, little nuances like (switching every) ball screen, in his career. His discomfort going into the game was easily read by our players. They knew he thought we'd win. But we all kind of weren't sure on this new defensive scheme we were trying on Michigan and that was all based on certain players they had."
And certain players MSU had — and the one they didn't, Nick Ward. It was the beginning of the Spartans truly taking advantage of Xavier Tillman's defensive acumen and versatility. Offensively, it was the start of Cassius Winston as a bona fide superstar, destroying another team's ball-screen defense screen after screen for 40 minutes.
"The offense was pretty good. But defense is what made that team elite," Fife said. "Kenny (Goins) made up for a lot of mistakes down the stretch. He would just see things, like where a guy might be open under the rim and it's not supposed to be his help. Those are Draymond (Green)-like plays.
"Ultimately it was the level of trust that team had. That involves support personnel, the coaches, everybody just trusted one another. And if Matt McQuaid was supposed to be in the deep corner for Cassius to hit him, he could throw it without even looking at him. He knew Matt was going to be where he was supposed to be. If Cassius drove down the middle and Kenny Goins was supposed to shift from one side to the other, Cassius knew and the lob would be there. Connectivity."
That word, connectivity, defined last season's team. And, perhaps for the first time this season, partly defined MSU's 76-56 win over Illinois on Thursday night.
"You got a glimpse of it — how together we were and how good we are," sophomore Aaron Henry said.
"It was the most connected this year's team has been," Izzo said.
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There is no better game or time for MSU to prove that the trust was real. This next game — the first meeting between MSU and Michigan of the season — has changed the trajectory of the winning team's season the last couple years. It's changed how we've viewed the possibilities for them and how they viewed the possibilities for themselves.
Two years ago, Michigan's Jan. 13 upset win in East Lansing turned out not to be an upset at all. That was the night we first figured out the Wolverines might be a bear. They went on to reach the NCAA tournament final, running over MSU again in the Big Ten tournament. And then last season, the thought of MSU as a true national contender was born in Ann Arbor.
This year's game is the earliest meeting since Michigan coach Juwan Howard's freshman season with the Wolverines 28 years ago. It's perhaps too early for lasting judgments to be made. MSU is still just in the middle stages of what it hopes to become after a difficult couple of months. Michigan is hardly fully formed, either, and Sunday will likely be without second-leading scorer and top 3-point shooter Isaiah Livers, who's recovering from the ever-dreaded groin injury.
This game for the Spartans should be more about themselves than the rivalry — about extending their lead in the Big Ten standings and trying to take a page from last year's squad, finding similar trust and connectedness.
That's how MSU beat Duke last year. The Spartans didn't match up physically with Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett. It didn't even look like they'd match up well with Michigan. Instead, it wound up being an awful matchup for the Wolverines.
"When you look at our current team, this year and last year, minus Nick Ward for half (last) season, it's not physically imposing," Fife said. "The reality is that size and speed still matters and athleticism still matters in this sport and we don't possess a ton of that."
They possess more of it now than a year ago, with Aaron Henry's increased role, the length of emerging sophomore Marcus Bingham Jr. and a freshman guard in Rocket Watts, who comes with athletic gifts absent from last year's roster.
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"What we lost in (Ward, Goins and McQuaid), we gained with speed, quickness and someone who can get in the paint at will (Watts), even though he seems to like the step-back 3 right now," Fife said. "What we lost in McQuaid's shooting and disciplined defense, we gained with Rocket's speed, quickness and ball-pressure defense. What we lost in Kenny's disciplined, stable defense, we gained in Bingham's shot-blocking."
They are, however, still not a group that will win anything consequential by overwhelming opponents physically. And so last season remains the example to follow.
"This is a team that I would say has the ability to be better than last year's team," Fife said, as mentioned earlier. "It starts with team defense. That really is the key, and the execution of the game plan.
"We're not the most talented, physically gifted team in the country, so cohesion is critical."
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Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.
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