Kentucky basketball: Five things to know about the Michigan State Spartans

Five things about Kentucky basketball’s opponent in Tuesday’s Champions Classic, the Michigan State Spartans:

1. Tom Izzo is still Tom Izzo

Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo is 67 years old. He’s in his 28th season as the Spartans’ head coach. He’s won 667 games, compared to 268 losses, taken teams to eight Final Fours, been to two NCAA title games and won the national championship in 2000. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.

If you watched Michigan State’s 64-63 loss to Gonzaga last Friday in the Armed Forces Classic, you know that Izzo hasn’t lost the competitive fire. Oh no, not by a long shot. He’s still on his players, even when they’re putting an arm on his shoulder trying to get the coach to calm down. He’s in the face of officials. He was even a bit testy with the media after the game, and Izzo has a reputation for being great with the media.

After all, Izzo wants to get Michigan State basketball back to where Michigan State basketball is used to being. After reaching the Final Four in 2019, the Spartans slipped to 15-13 and First Four relegation in 2020-21. Last season, Michigan State finished 23-13. It edged Davidson 74-73 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, before losing 85-76 to Duke in the round of 32.

And this year, the Spartans were left out of the preseason AP Top 25. Izzo could not have been happy about that.

2. John Calipari says Michigan State had Gonzaga “beat”

Kentucky Coach John Calipari is always saying that the next opponent on the Wildcats’ schedule had its last opponent beat only to somehow, someway, through an occurrence of unfortunate luck manage to lose the game.

This time, however, Cal may have a point. Matched up against No. 2 Gonzaga on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln near San Diego, the Spartans led the Zags 38-31 at the half, then 45-33 with 17:04 left in the second half.

Alas, the Spartans sputtered down the stretch, thanks to Izzo’s bigs encountering major foul trouble. Joey Hauser, a 6-foot-9 grad student who transferred to MSU from Marquette before last season, fouled out with 4:46 left. Mady Sissoko, a 6-9 center from Mali, West Africa, who had turned heads with his play against the Zags, fouled out with 1:41 left.

The play of Gonzaga’s Drew Timme led to the Michigan State duo’s foul problems. And on the way to sending first Hauser and then Sissoko to the bench, Timme finished with 22 points, 13 rebounds and four assists.

Michigan State shot 40.4 percent in the game, to 41.8 for Gonzaga. Both teams had trouble with their three-point aim in the outdoor conditions. Gonzaga was 4-of-18 beyond the arc; Michigan State was 3-of-16. Gonzaga won the glass 40-32, which no doubt has been a point of emphasis for Izzo leading into Tuesday’s game.

3. So who is Mady Sissoko?

After arriving in East Lansing from Wasatch Academy in Utah, Mady Sissoko averaged just 5.4 minutes per game in 25 games in 2020-21. He averaged just 4.5 minutes per game in 30 games in 2021-22.

New year, new story for the center in 2022-23. He scored just four points and grabbed six rebounds in Michigan State’s 73-55 win over Northern Arizona on Nov. 7. Against Gonzaga, however, Sissoko scored 14 points and grabbed nine rebounds in 25 minutes. He was 6-of-11 from the foul line, but drew the fouls necessary to get 11 free throws.

“You just have to keep your foot on the gas and keep moving forward,” Sissoko said after the game. “We have a couple of great games coming up. You just have to stay focused and keep your foot on the gas. The whole team, what we did today, we have to take the next step.”

Said Izzo of Sissoko, “I told everybody that he’s worked his a-- off.”

Tuesday night, we could see Mady Sissoko of Mali, West Africa, matched up against Kentucky’s Ugonna Onyenso of Imo State, Nigeria.

4. Joey Hauser is a big key to the Spartans

Izzo has a pair of excellent guards in senior Tyson Walker and junior A.J. Hoggard. His frontcourt is a bit thin, however, which puts more pressure on Joey Hauser to produce.

The brother of the Boston Celtics’ Sam Hauser, Joey averaged 9.7 points and 5.3 rebounds as a freshman at Marquette. He then averaged 9.7 points and 5.6 rebounds as a sophomore before packing his bags and leaving Milwaukee for East Lansing.

In his first season as a Spartan, Hauser averaged 7.3 points and 5.3 rebounds. He shot 44.6 percent from the floor, including 40.8 percent from three-point range. After scoring 27 points in Michigan State’s NCAA win over Davidson, Hauser was held to just five points in the team’s second-round loss to Duke.

This year, Izzo needs more of the Hauser he saw against Davidson. And in MSU’s opener against Northern Arizona, the forward from Stevens Point, Wis., scored 18 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. He was 4-of-8 from three-point range. Against Gonzaga, however, Hauser missed all five of his shots, including his trio of three-point attempts. He grabbed just one rebound and turned it over three times in 19 minutes.

The Spartans will need much better production Tuesday night against Kentucky.

5. You might remember the ‘Basketbowl’

Starting with Michigan State’s 73-66 win over Tubby Smith and Kentucky in the 1999 Midwest Region finals, played in St. Louis, the Spartans won five of seven games against the Wildcats.

Kentucky did beat Michigan State 60-58 at Rupp Arena on Dec. 23, 1999. After that, however, Izzo won two straight over UK — 46-45 in a snowy East Lansing on Dec. 16, 2000, and 71-67 at Rupp on Dec. 14, 2002. Kentucky defeated the Spartans 79-74 in Detroit on Dec. 13, 2003, before State beat UK 94-88 in overtime in an epic Austin Region finals of the NCAA Tournament on March 27, 2005, and 78-74 on Nov. 12, 2013, in the Champions Classic.

Kentucky has won the last two Champions Classic matchups, however, smothering the Spartans 69-48 on Nov. 15, 2016, and prevailing 69-62 on Nov. 5, 2019, behind 26 points from Tyrese Maxey.

That Dec. 13, 2003, game was the so-called “Basketbowl” played before a record crowd of 78,129 at Ford Field in Detroit. The raised court was set in the middle of the indoor football stadium, much like a Final Four setting.

UK’s Gerald Fitch scored 25 points and Chuck Hayes added 17 points and 12 rebounds to lead the Cats. Erik Daniels scored 16 for Kentucky, which entered the game ranked eighth by the AP. Ranked 21st, Michigan State was led by Paul Davis with 24 points.

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