Men's Basketball Holds Media Day
10/17/2001 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Oct. 17, 2001
EAST LANSING, Mich. -
Photos
Media Day Photo Gallery
Audio
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
Media Day Preseason Notes
Download Free Acrobat Reader
The Drive For Five - One of MSU's top goals entering the 2001-02 season is capturing a fifth-straight regular-season Big Ten Championship. If the Spartans win the title, they will join the 1960-64 Ohio State teams as the only schools to accomplish the feat.
Anybody, Anywhere, Anytime - Nine of Michigan State opponents in the 2001-02 season earned a berth in the NCAA Tournament (Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio State, Penn State, Virginia, Wisconsin), while four more appeared in the NIT (Detroit, Minnesota, Purdue, Seton Hall). Additionally, six schools were ranked in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll of the 2001 season (No. 4 Illinois, No. 5 Arizona, No. 8 Florida, No. 16 Virginia, No. 20 Indiana, No. 24 Ohio State and No. 25 Wisconsin). Besides an always difficult Big Ten slate, Michigan State will face a challenging non-conference schedule. The youthful Spartans will face road contests at Virginia (Richmond, Va.), Florida and Stanford (Oakland, Calif.), home games against 2001 NCAA runner-up Arizona and Seton Hall and the potential of facing several difficult opponents in the Preseason NIT.
Safe At Home - Michigan State will count on the friendly confines of the Breslin Center to help a young team along this season. The Spartans own the longest active homecourt winning streak in the nation at 44 games. In fact, no Spartan on the 2001-02 roster has ever lost a home game. Over the 44-game stretch, the Spartans have won by an average of 21.7 points and just six of the 44 games have been decided by fewer than 10 points. This season, MSU could eclipse the record for consecutive home wins by a Big Ten school. Minnesota won 53 straight home games from 1899-1905 before joining the Big Ten and both Ohio State (1959-63) and Indiana (1991-95) each won 50 straight at home as a member of the Big Ten.
Movin' On Up - Construction on the Berkowitz Basketball Complex is in its final stages. With the new auxiliary gymnasium already completed, the Spartan basketball staff is eagerly anticipating its move to the new offices in late December. The $7.5 million dollar project will provide Michigan State with one of the finest basketball complexes in the nation. Included in the addition are offices for the coaching staff, a large video review room, a video workroom and a conference room.
Regulars In The AP Poll - Michigan State enters the 2001-02 season with a streak of 62-straight weeks ranked in The Associated Press Top 25 poll. Only Arizona, Duke and Stanford have longer active streaks. MSU has also been ranked in the top 15 for 55 straight weeks.
Monsters On The Glass - The 2000-01 season marked the second-straight year that the Spartans led the nation in rebounding margin. The Spartans' margin of +15.4 last season tied for the fifth-greatest margin in NCAA history since the statistic was first kept in 1973 and the largest since 1980.
What I Did On Summer Vacation - Five Spartans plus head coach Tom Izzo spent part of their summer taking part in international basketball competition. Redshirt sophomores Jason Andreas and Adam Wolfe were members of the Big Ten Foreign Tour team, where Wolfe led the squad in scoring (14.3 ppg) and rebounding (6.5 rpg). Juniors Aloysius Anagonye and Adam Ballinger played on NYC Hoops coached by St. John's coach Mike Jarvis that competed in Greece against Olympic caliber competition. Finally, both sophomore Marcus Taylor and Tom Izzo represented USA Basketball in separate competitions. Taylor was a member of the gold-medal winning USA Young Men's World Championship team, averaging 5.7 points and 2.8 assists. Izzo was an assistant coach on the USA Basketball squad that won the gold medal at the 2001 Goodwill Games in Australia. In total, the six Spartans logged a combined 70,000 miles in international travel.
Air Time - Michigan State will appear on national television networks at least 13 times during the regular season, including seven games on ESPN, four on CBS and two on espn2. That number could increase to 19 depending on how far MSU advances in the Preseason NIT and television decisions regarding the game vs. Stanford and two late-season Big Ten contests. In total, MSU could have 25 regular-season contests televised.
Winning With Rebounding, Defense And Offense - Despite several new faces, the Spartans already have a blueprint for championship basketball: rebounding, defense and offense. Over the past four years that the Spartans have won the Big Ten regular-season championship, it comes as little surprise that the Spartans have led the conference in rebounding in each year and ranked among the top three in scoring defense. In addition, MSU led the Big Ten in field-goal percentage in 2000-01 and ranked second in scoring offense in all games.
Other People's Expectations - While MSU lost seven letterwinners from last season, several national media outlets expect the Spartans to be in the hunt come March. Consider the following rankings for Michigan State: Athlon Magazine - 17th, SportingNews.com - 14th, ESPN.com - 12th, FoxSports.com - 25th.
Championship Similarities - The 2001-02 Spartans will have many similarities to the 1997-98 Spartans that posted a 22-8 record and won the first of MSU's four straight Big Ten Championships. Consider the starting lineup from 1997-98: G - Charlie Bell (Fr.), G - Mateen Cleaves (So.), F - Andre Hutson (Fr.), F - Jason Klein (Jr.), F - Antonio Smith (Jr.). Coming off the bench for the Spartans were DuJuan Wiley, David Thomas, A.J. Granger and Doug Davis.
Coach Izzo - Another reason the Spartans have not lowered their championship expectations for 2001-02 is the presence of seventh-year head coach Tom Izzo. A three-time national coach of the year, Izzo has the fourth most number of wins by a coach in his first six seasons of coaching in the history of college basketball. He has the highest NCAA Tournament winning percentage among active coaches and is the eighth-winningest active coach by percentage.
