With the 2011-12 hoops season officially over now that means basketball recruiting gets to take center stage, at least until football ramps up again. Josh (intrpdtrvlr) does a terrific job here at TOC covering the recruiting beat but I wanted to take a moment to recommend to interested Spartan fans the work of Jay Jensen over at PrepHoopsTV. No one does a better job of covering on video the top prep players in Michigan, as well as the top targets of Michigan schools. If you're interested in seeing solid, quality footage of Matt Costello, Denzel Valentine, Gary Harris, James Young, Drake Harris, Jabari Parker and others you can subscribe to his YouTube channel here and follow him on Twitter at @PrepHoopsTV. Here's a recent sample of Michigan State 2012 commit Denzel Valentine:

For the first time since 2000, which was also the last time they won the Big Ten Tournament, Michigan State beat Wisconsin three times in a single season. The convincing 65-52 win puts the Spartans into the finals on Sunday against Ohio State, which dominated Michigan 77-55 in the day's second game. This was also Tom Izzo's first win in the conference tournament over nemesis Bo Ryan, who beat him the first three times they had met.

This was a game of runs, somewhat reminiscent of the first Indiana game this year. Wisconsin came out shooting well and Michigan State, well, did not, missing their first seven shots. The Badgers scored the game's first 9 points and, after a Jared Berggren three-pointer at the 10:13 mark, they led 20-9. At that point the game turned around completely and Wisconsin failed to hit a shot from the field for the remainder of the half, i.e., over half of the entire period. MSU's run extended into the second half, at which point they led 46-27, making it a 37-7 run. It began with a stunning sequence of three straight three-pointers by Austin Thornton and at the end of it MSU had made 14 of 18 shots, including the first 8 in a row.

This would be cause for most opponents to be given up for dead, but, like the villain from a low-budget slasher movie, Wisconsin just wouldn't be killed. They went on another run of their own, quickly cutting the deficit to 6 on a Jordan Taylor three-ball at the 12:18 mark. It was starting to get a little uncomfortable in Bankers Life Fieldhouse but the Spartans responded with an 11-0 run and the margin never dropped below double-digits after that.

It was a solid win for MSU, who, though they may have been missing injured Branden Dawson on the offensive glass, made up for it in plenty of other areas, leaving Wisconsin with nothing to look forward to on Sunday other than their seeding in the NCAAs. Four factors analysis, player notes and more after the jump.

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In recent years it's been a bit of a trial watching Michigan State play defense. Whether it was Adreian Payne deciding too late to hedge on a screen or Korie Lucious getting switched on to Demetri McCamey during a crucial late-game possession, I would find myself tensing up and just hoping for the best. This year it's actually been fun to watch the Spartans play D. They always seem to make the right decision on switching, hedging, fighting over a screen or doubling in the post, lending a pleasing fluidity to their defensive efforts. I never thought I'd enjoy forcing a contested 18-footer by the opposition with under 5 on the shot clock as much as a thunderous dunk by the Spartans at the other end, but, I have to admit, I do.

Michigan State's defense definitely passes the infamous "eye test", but what do the numbers say? MSU currently sits at number 3 in the kenpom.com adjusted efficiency ratings on defense at 84.1, easily their best mark of the tempo-free era (2003 forward). If you look at raw numbers you can go back a few years further. MSU's raw defensive efficiency this season is 88.1. This is the lowest number they've recorded since at least 1996-97. Even the National Championship team was higher at 89.2. Though you'd want to look at these numbers relative to national numbers overall (this year's kenpom.com rank of 3 is their best ever), a strong case could be made that this is the best defensive team of the Tom Izzo era.

Note: Yeah, I know I'm risking bad karma by posting this right before an important road game, but I've been getting a backlog of this stuff and need to get it out sometime. I'm fully prepared to shoulder the blame for a torching at Mackey. That's just the kind of guy I am.
Stats are from kenpom.com and statsheet.com.

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In a game that featured big scoring runs by both teams, Michigan State prevailed for a tough home win in their Big Ten conference opener, handing Indiana its first loss of the season. The Spartans landed the first blow, pushing a 19-14 lead to 34-16 with just over 5 minutes left in the first half. The Hoosiers responded immediately with 3 straight threes to start a 38-11 surge that spanned halftime and resulted in a 54-45 Indiana lead. But back came the Spartans, who delivered the knockout punch with a 20-0 run that Indiana was unable to counter down the stretch. It was easily the most breathtaking, intense game of the MSU season and reminded you of just how great in-conference basketball can be.

The initial MSU surge was fueled by hot shooting from the starters and near-flawless half-court defense that forced Indiana into tough shots seemingly every trip. After Keith Appling's three-pointer created the 34-16 lead the Spartans missed their next 7 shots, which seemed affect their defense as well. An Appling layup shortly before the half broke the string and made it a 7-point MSU lead at the break.

Indiana roared out of the locker room for the second half, scoring the first 12 points. At this point they were on a 25-2 run and MSU seemed to have no answers for Christian Watford and Victor Oladipo, athletic players who seemed to be scoring at will. But the lockdown defensive intensity returned for MSU and the ensuing 20-0 run was enough to put Indiana away for good.

There was a bit of amused tweeting during the game about just how wild the Ken Pomeroy win-probability graph for this game would look. That graph will likely not be up until later, but here's the Statsheet.com game flow diagram that gives you a bit of the same flavor:

More graphs and player notes after the jump.

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Draymond Green was a one-man wrecking crew as he led Michigan State to an impressive road victory in one of the toughest places to win in college basketball. After leading for much of the game, including all of the last 18:30, MSU held off a late rally to become only the seventh team to record a win over Gonzaga in the McCarthey Center.

To the surprise of many, including me, MSU won this game by completely dominating inside. The Spartans front line of Green, Derrick Nix and Adreian Payne frustrated Gonzaga's attempts to get the ball down low to their big men, center Robert Sacre and Elias Harris. Nix and Payne did a terrific job denying Sacre the ball and the help defense did the rest, creating numerous turnovers by doubling or tripling the post and clogging up the passing lanes. Gonzaga committed 13 turnovers in the first half, some of them on attempts to force the ball inside and others due to simply not being able to generate any consistent offense.

The Gonzaga offense divided pretty neatly into three phases. Freshman Gary Bell did some early damage creating for himself. He finished with 13 points on only 6 shots. For most of the latter part of the first half their scoring consisted of Robert Sacre free throws. Much of the rest was courtesy of 5'11" 150LB guard David Stockton being his own one-man band, draining three-pointers and getting to the line. He finished with a team-high 19 points. But in all cases it was one guy trying to do it himself and this is reflected in the assist numbers. Gonzaga came into the game averaging an assist on 56% of their field goals. The MSU defense held them to only 9 assists on 19 scores (47%).

After weathering the Gary Bell-led storm to start the game MSU went into halftime with a one-point lead. In the second half they steadily pulled away, pushing their lead to as high as 14, always able to answer when Gonzaga made a push. They closed the game out in a manner uncomfortably reminiscent of UCLA in last year's tournament game, but managed to hit enough late free throws to keep the Zags at arm's length.

The official box score is here and the statsheet.com page on the game can be found here.

But the big story of the game was Green, who finished with a career high 34 points on a brilliant shooting line of 7-8 on twos, 4-5 on threes and 8-9 from the line. In a comment that captured Green's night perfectly, and incidentally warmed the heart of this tempo-free stats guy, Izzo noted that "Draymond Green was a man tonight. He probably took the least amount of shots he took all year tonight, or close to it, but he was very efficient." Frankly, Green was terrific at both ends of the court. Green completely eliminated Gonzaga star and NBA prospect Elias Harris from this game. Green had the primary assignment on Harris most of the night and Harris finished with only 6 points on 2-11 shooting and seemed invisible most of the game. Green played confidently, stayed within the flow of the offense, led and facilitated masterfully and overall turned in perhaps his best game as a Spartan. As tweeted by Joe Rexrode, Green noted that the key to his game was "definitely patience, the most I've had all year."

A look at the four factors and some notes on the game after the jump.

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The Zags come into Saturday night's game with a 5-1 record, having just suffered their first loss in their first true road game of the season at Illinois. This will be the fifth meeting all-time between the Spartans and Bulldogs, with MSU holding a 3-1 edge. Current Michigan State fans will remember the hard-fought game of two years ago and no one will ever forget the unbelievable triple-overtime game in Maui in which the Zags pulled out their only win in the series.

Gonzaga is currently ranked #23(AP), #22(Coaches'), #31(Ken Pomeroy), #56(Sagarin Predictor), or #60(Sagarin ELO_Chess) depending on your preference. They entered the season favored to win their 12^th straight West Coast Conference regular-season title, a reign of conference dominance rivaled only by John Wooden's UCLA teams. Although they lost leading scorer and rebounder Steven Gray, and point guard Dmitri Goodson elected to transfer to Baylor to play football, they still bring back one of the best and most experienced frontcourts in the nation in Robert Sacre and Elias Harris and feature an array of sharpshooting guards led by Canadian freshman sensation Kevin Pangos. They started out well, winning their first five, including a solid win over Washington State and a beatdown of Notre Dame, but faltered against the Illini in their last.

Coach Mark Few's team is ranked #20 on offense and #46 on defense in the Pomeroy rankings. This is a fairly typical Few team, although they're shooting a little worse than their predecessors with a line of (.470/.392/.698 2P%/3P%/FT%). They're making up for this by getting to the line a ton (more than 1 free-throw for every 2 shots they attempt or 53.3%, 9^th nationally) and exploiting a huge free-throw differential. They've shot 179 free throws to their opponents' 96 (stats from kenpom.com $).

Their defense remains somewhat suspect as they try to close down the inside, leaving themselves vulnerable to the three-point shot. Opposing players are shooting 38% from three against the Zags. Some of this is due to a lack of lateral quickness on the wings: the same players who can spot up and hit threes (Pangos and David Stockton) have difficulties guarding on the perimeter. Gonzaga has also been taken advantage of on the defensive glass, allowing teams to get back 1 out of every 3 misses (194^th nationally). Their style is, however, generating more steals and turnovers than usual (24% opp. TO rate) and their defense inside the arc is solid (45.4% opp. 2P%) if unspectacular, thanks to their impressive front line.

Gonzaga is a tall team in the front court, but their overall team size is only slightly higher than average for D-I. Sacre, who I believe is in his eighth year of eligibility, stands 7'0" and Harris is a solid 6'7" 240 lbs. They also bring 6'9" sophomore Sam Dower off the bench. All three are among the national leaders in shot block percentage and are likely to pose some problems for the Spartans front line of Adreian Payne/Derrick Nix/Draymond Green. That same group proved vulnerable to the size and athleticism of Florida State's big men in the first half of that game, though the Seminoles failed to exploit this advantage later on.

So far Illinois has provided the only model for beating Gonzaga and it may be a difficult one to emulate. After being abused early by Sacre the Illini got him into foul trouble by running a tag team of Myers Leonard, Nnanna Egwu, Tyler Griffey and seldom-used Ibby Djimde at him. Sacre went cold from the field and eventually fouled out against the physical play of the Illinois collective. It didn't help that sharpshooter Pangos went only 1-5 from three-point range. Hoops junkies who stayed up to watch the night session of ESPN's marathon season tip-off saw Pangos drop 9 threes and 33 points on Washington State.

So this is going to be a stern test for the Spartans, but that comes as no surprise. Many of us believed that this game and the game against Florida State would be the true barometers of MSU's strength this season. Readings from the FSU game were quite positive but this will be a different test entirely, as the Spartans go on the road to Spokane, where Gonzaga is 120-9 under Mark Few, including five undefeated seasons. Player profiles, game notes and some links to follow after the jump.

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Thank God for basketball. We can now turn our attention to a diversion of a completely different sort - and one that's more likely to have a positive outcome.

I avoid the use of terms like cupcake, punching bag or tomato can out of respect for all opponents. I will confine myself to a few facts about the Nebraska-Omaha basketball program. They are currently ranked #342 out of 345 Division I schools in Ken Pomeroy's rankings (#317 offense, #343 defense). They are new to D-I this year and, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, are one of only 4 schools playing without a conference affiliation. They were planning to reclassify to D-I in 2012 and join the Summit League but apparently reached some agreement with their former conference to leave a year early. The results have been, well, more or less what you would expect, but they have been competitive in many of their games. In fact, the Mavericks come to East Lansing fresh off last night's win over former Tom Izzo assistant Mark Montgomery's Northern Illinois squad. Of course that team is now 0-7, but a win is a win.

What follows is a preview I wrote last Summer. I think it's still fairly accurate, but if any of you is a real Mid-Majority type wonk or a UNO fan, please post any additions or corrections you may have in the comments. Otherwise try to keep it clean and legal. Enjoy.

Coach: Derrin Hansen - Record: 91-59 all with UNO

Last year: 19-9 overall, 15-7 in the MIAA

Top three returning players:

• Mitch Albers (G, 17.3 ppg, 2.0 apg)
• Alex Welhouse (F, 8.6 ppg, 3.8 rpg)
• John Karhoff (C, 6.5 ppg, 5.0 rpg)

Michigan State hosted Nebraska-Omaha in an exhibition game last year, which featured a matchup between Draymond Green and his older brother Torrian Harris. The Spartans prevailed in that game 102-72 behind 25 points from Kalin Lucas and 16 more from Green.

The Mavericks are set to leave the Division II MIAA and join the Division I Summit League in the 2012-13 season, but they come into this game in a rebuilding mode. Harris, their leading rebounder and third best scorer, has moved on as well as leading scorer and two-time All-MIAA guard Tyler Bullock. Second leading scorer Mitch Albers [Ed - currently averaging 19.4 ppg], who has assumed the role of primary scorer and center John Karhoff are the only returning starters. The rest of the roster is filled out with freshmen, bench players from last year and transfers.

Nebraska-Omaha played a fairly up-tempo style last year, averaging 81 points on 74 possessions per game. Given their lack of size (the tallest player is Karhoff at 6'8") this will probably be true again this year. But with no big scorers to contain on the outside, Michigan State should be able to exploit a considerable size advantage to bring home a win in this one.

Wednesday's Big Ten/ACC Challenge game at the Breslin Center between Florida State and Michigan State features two teams with remarkably similar statistical profiles. Both teams are winning with defense (FSU is #4 in the nation in Ken Pomeroy's defensive efficiency numbers, MSU #6), both excel on the offensive glass (FSU has an offensive rebounding % of 38.4, MSU 35.5%) and both have tremendous struggles taking care of the ball (FSU has a 25.3% turnover rate, MSU 23.8%). Both teams lost reasonably close games against the only two quality opponents they have faced, FSU in their last two and MSU in their first two. Though there are many similarities between the two teams this year there are also some differences that could prove to be the keys to this matchup.

The two teams have never met in the Challenge and Florida State won the only meeting between the schools, in 1997 at the NIT. This is no easy draw for Michigan State. Florida State has emerged as one of the top programs in the ACC. In 2011 the Seminoles finished 3rd in the conference with an 11-5 record, including a win over then-number one Duke, and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA Tournament before falling to surprising VCU in overtime.

Defense has been the calling card of Leonard Hamilton's teams and this year is no exception. FSU has had one of the best defenses in the nation the last two years, finishing first in overall field goal defense and in Ken Pomeroy's defensive efficiency ratings (kenpom.com) both years. Although they lost top player Chris Singleton early to the NBA draft, they return four starters from last year's team, including leading scorer Michael Snaer, leading rebounder Bernard James and impressive freshman Okaro White, who came on to start the last 13 games of the season. They also return experienced 3-point/defensive specialist Deividas Dulkys.

A look at the keys to the game after the jump.

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Michigan State has evened its record at 2-2 with an uninspiring 69-47 win over UALR at the Breslin Center Sunday night. In contrast to the two losses (to North Carolina and Duke), when Tom Izzo was pleased with the team's effort despite the result, he had little good to say about this 22-point win. Rexrode quotes him as saying "I'm gonna write a book called 'Good to Bad'. That's what we did tonight, we went from good to bad." His mood is understandable, but it's hard to get too upset over a sparsely attended Sunday night snoozer against an overmatched opponent, so I went with "good to meh".

The Spartans started quickly in both halves, going up 18-5 to start the game and pushing a 10-point halftime lead to 19 less than 5 minutes into the second session. It was all the other time that was kind of a problem, as MSU played with less focus and energy than they had in any of the three previous contests. UALR had a chance to cut the lead to 9 with 13 minutes left but Courtney Jackson missed a three-pointer and MSU ran off 5 straight points to keep the Trojans at bay. The final margin of 22 was pretty close to the largest spread of the game (24) and thus a bit misleading, perhaps. There's not much else to say about the flow of the game, so I'll go right to the four factors analysis.

The Spartans didn't shoot very well (46.8 eFG%), didn't take care of the ball very well (21.6 TO%), didn't get many of their own misses (19.4 OReb%) and, although they effectively won the game by getting to the line, still only shot 61% once they got there. Despite all that they came out ahead in each of the categories.

Much of the credit for that can go to the defense. Though they may not have looked particularly impressive, they did hold the Trojans to a stifling 0.64 points per possession, continuing their run of not allowing a point per trip in a game yet this season. Their defensive prowess has included rebounding, as they have not allowed an opponent to get back as many as 1 out of 4 of their misses. So while the offense has been cringe-worthy at times, Izzo has to like at least some of what he sees at the other end, particularly with such a young team.

It seems somehow appropriate in a game like this that the leading scorer was Austin Thornton, who put up a career high 13 points, despite missing all three of his 3-point attempts. He did add 6 boards, 2 assists and 3 steals and stood out for his effort and energy. Keith Appling finally had a game with points and assists (12 and 3) and Travis Trice continued to look good at the point: the two played together again in stretches. They also continue to rebound surprisingly well for their size, each grabbing 2 defensive boards and Appling getting another on the offensive end. There can't be too many teams out there getting 12% defensive rebounding from the point guard spot, as MSU is doing this year. Draymond Green had a workmanlike 9-point/10-rebound performance, but did seem out of sorts or frustrated at times.

On the other side of the ledger, Adreian Payne and Derrick Nix only took 4 shots between them in 39 combined minutes, though Payne did get to the line 4 times. Russell Byrd missed all 5 of his 3-pointers after both Appling and Izzo appeared annoyed with him for passing one up early. It's clear he's still finding his stroke. Brandon Wood failed to score in the second half after putting up 9 in the first.

So, this game is over and will fade from memory until all that remains is the W in the win column. The key for Izzo will be to ensure that the team doesn't lose focus and continues to play with energy, regardless of the opponent. Next up is Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which is likely to provide more of a challenge - they just beat Texas Southern by the same margin as MSU did.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski was able to achieve his 903rd career win with a victory over Michigan State Tuesday night, passing Bob Knight for first place in the all-time Division I coaching ranks. After a close and reasonably entertaining first half the Madison Square Garden officials, perhaps worried about Coach K possibly failing to notch the requisite win on national television, welded an iron lid onto MSU's basket and didn't remove it until the outlook was no longer in doubt

With the score at 41-40 in Duke's favor the welding crew was sent out to install the lid. Duke used this advantage to push their lead to 53-40 when the lid was briefly removed so that Keith Appling could shoot free-throws after a technical foul on Miles Plumlee. The lid was then reattached until Michigan State called time out with 9:12 left in the game and Duke leading 61-41 and the game effectively over.

In all seriousness, after almost 2 minutes had been played in the second half, the score was tied at 36-36. What followed was one of the worst stretches of basketball I've ever seen a Michigan State team play. By the time it was over Duke had their 20-point lead and, as in last year's game, their attempts to squander the lead in horrifying fashion fell short and they ended up settling for a 5-point blowout.

The Spartans actually played fairly well in the first half, opening up a 6-point lead at about the midway point. They were shooting fairly well and controlling the paint, getting a number of second-chance points and limiting Duke's. But turnovers were already becoming a problem and the unconscious three-point shooting of Andre Dawkins enabled Duke to retake the lead before a pretty floater by Brandon Wood just before the buzzer pulled MSU to within one at the break.

Dawkins continued his hot shooting in the second half and was joined by his backcourt partner Seth Curry, who finished with 20 points, half of them from the line. Duke also tightened things up in the paint as well, led by the Plumlees and Ryan Kelly, frequently limiting MSU to one shot on the many occasions they missed. Keith Appling took over in the last 2:13, scoring 11 of his 22 points, but it wasn't enough. Dawkins, by the way, can join the long line of players who emerged from relative obscurity to have a career game against the Spartans. Dawkins sported a 14.4% usage rate last year, just escaping Ken Pomeroy's "nearly invisible" category and he had scored a combined 10 points in Duke's first two games. He ended up with 26, including 6-10 from three, only the third time in his career the junior had scored as many as 20.

As Chris Vannini and others have pointed out, this marks the third straight game (going back to last year's tournament game with UCLA) that MSU has done a faceplant to fall at least 20 points down, only to cut it to single-digits by the end. Those rallies may be concealing a serious problem. If MSU is going to go through 8 minute stretches of complete inability to score on a regular basis, there may be a lot of long and painful games in store for this season.

The big question for this team was always going to be offense and, after two games, that question remains. The worst part of Tuesday night's game was that the team went cold from close range, rather than from beyond the arc as in the North Carolina game and the two exhibitions. Keith Appling, Brandon Wood and Travis Trice actually posted an excellent shooting line of .706/.500/.880 (2pt%/3pt%/FT%). Unfortunately, Draymond Green, Adreian Payne and Derrick Nix combined to shoot 6-21 (21%) from two and Green chipped in another 0-4 from three-point range. This poor shooting combined with a lack of discipline at both ends (21 turnovers and 29 fouls leading to 41 Duke foul shots) was too much for the Spartans to overcome, even with Duke getting sloppy towards the end.

The four factors chart and further analysis after the jump.

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Is MSU an elite basketball program? Their Wikipedia page says they are so it must be true, right? Heck, according to Sports Illustrated the Spartans had already achieved that status in 2001, when they made their third consecutive Final Four™. For those with a more economic bent, MSU is part of Nike's 'Elite' franchise, schools for whom they've designed a special category of uniforms. But Tom Izzo, as he has in the past, would probably hesitate to put Michigan State in that exalted group just yet. When asked prior to the 2010 Final Four™ matchup with Butler if MSU was a "blueblood" program Izzo replied that "I don’t know what constitutes that," and went on to say that he doesn’t believe "we’ve earned the right to be in that group yet." Since they went on to lose to Butler and followed that up with, well, last season, this assessment seems unlikely to have changed.

So what would have to happen for MSU to be considered in the company of Duke and North Carolina? Well, beating them once in a while would be a pretty good start. Unfortunately the Spartans may be losing ground in that department. Friday's loss to North Carolina in the Carrier Classic was the sixth loss in a row to the Tar Heels and waiting in the wings is Duke, which sports an 8-2 record against the Spartans, including no regular season losses since 1958.

These may not be the Blue Devils of yore, however, or even the Blue Devils of the last two years. Though, as usual, highly ranked, they have a few question marks hovering about them, which their first game did nothing to dispel. They were taken to the wire in a one-point home win over up-and-coming-but-still-mid-major Belmont University of the Atlantic Sun conference. They had a far easier time beating the stuffing out of the Blue Hose of Presbyterian College, who haven't had a winning record (or a team turnover percentage below 20%) since joining Division I in 2007.

This will be the second game in a row for the Spartans in which the game itself will be something of a sidelight, as Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski takes his first crack at passing Bobby Knight as the winningest coach in Division I. After the jump is a preview I wrote of this game that was destined for the by-now-familiar publication that was never published. It still holds up pretty well, but in a more contemporary vein, Branden Dawson is expected to play after injuring his knee in the Carrier Classic game. He's been somewhat limited in practice and how his playing time will be affected remains to be seen. Also of interest will be the point guard position. Although the Big Ten Geeks thought that none of the point guard candidates "played well, or even looked like a point guard" against North Carolina, most observers weren't quite so pessimistic. In fact, Izzo is now talking about playing Travis Trice and Keith Appling together for stretches, which would put Appling at his more natural two-guard postion during those minutes.

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After almost two years of guessing, speculation and anguish on the part of at least four fanbases Gary Harris has finally made the call. He will be wearing the green-and-white of Michigan State when he begins his college career in 2012.

Harris, a five-star recruit from Hamilton Southeastern High School in Fishers, Indiana, has been a player of interest for MSU since his freshman year. The Indy Star first reported MSU's scholarship offer to Harris in early June, 2010, after he made an unofficial visit to East Lansing. Since then, as his stock and reputation continued to rise, he has been the source of more discussion and debate than any Izzo recruit in recent memory. Well it's all finally over and, as Spartan fans, we couldn't be happier. Congratulations, Gary, and welcome to the Spartan family!

Harris first began to draw national attention as a 14 year old freshmen when he lead HSE to a win in its sectional in the Indiana state tournament for the first time in school history. In his sophomore year he was picking up D-1 offers and by April, 2010 he had offers from Indiana, Minnesota, Iowa, Xavier, Cincinnati and IUPUI. He had a great AAU season in Spring of 2010 and that's when things really started to heat up, including the Michigan State offer in June.

In January of this year Harris had a big showing at the Flyin' to the Hoop Tournament in Dayton, Ohio and his recruitment, already hot, really began to sizzle. By this fall interest in Harris' recruitment had risen so high that he agreed to write a journal for Scout.com of all four of his official visits, to Purdue, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan State. He posted the final entry ($), about his trip to East Lansing, just 2 days before committing to Tom Izzo and the Spartans.

The Numbers

Gary Harris (SG) 6'4", 190 LB
Rivals: 5-star, #3 SG, #25 overall
Scout: 5-star, #2 SG, #5 overall
ESPN: 5-star, 97 grade, #1 SG, #10 overall

When Harris arrived on the recruiting scene he was known as a jump-shooter but now he has emerged as a slasher with exceptional ability to finish at the rim. He also gets high marks from the scouting services for his tenacious defense, which should make him a good fit on a Tom Izzo team. As a junior at HSE he averaged 17.6 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game.

At 6'4" with long arms he should be able to play the 2 and the 3 at MSU. He'll join a talented group of wings that will include Branden Dawson, Brandan Kearney, Russell Byrd, Kenny Kaminski and Denzel Valentine when he arrives. For some video of Harris courtesy of Jay Jensen at Michigan Prep Stars, see Pete's post from last night.

The addition of Harris turns what was already an excellent 2012 class into one of the best in the country. Shortly after the Harris decision ESPN's recruiting expert Dave Telep tweeted that "Michigan State has to be the big winner of the day. Gary Harris is a T-10 player, No. 1 SG and vaults class to No. 3 in ESPNU rankings".

Harris is Izzo's most highly ranked recruit since Delvon Roe. With last year's signing of Branden Dawson of Gary, Indiana this should put to rest any lingering doubts about Izzo not being able to land top-ranked players from outside of Michigan. Spartan fans hope this continues as he goes after players like Jabari Parker, Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones in upcoming classes. It should be an exciting few years coming up for Spartan basketball.

Photo credit: msuspartans.com

In the final tune-up for North Carolina and Duke MSU cruised to an 80-58 win over the Hillsdale Chargers in an exhibition game at the Breslin Center. After jumping out to a 25-9 lead the Spartans weathered a 12-2 run by Hillsdale before pushing the lead back to 16 at halftime. Hillsdale never got closer than 12 after that and MSU pushed the lead as high as 26 in the second half.

It was a game with more positives than negatives, but it's still not clear how ready this Spartans team is to take on North Carolina in just under a week. The last of the home-brewed non-interactive four factors graphs (statsheet.com will be providing them from here on out) is shown below. As they did against Ferris State, MSU swept all four factors in notching this win.

In a fairly up-tempo 74-possession game the Spartans managed 1.08 points-per-possession while holding Hillsdale to 0.78. Despite another rocky shooting night (4-20) from three-point range MSU managed a respectable 51.6 eFG%, shooting 61% on their twos (27-44). They also posted a very encouraging 13.5% turnover rate (they averaged 20.2% last year). And although the performance on the glass was not as dominant as might be expected, they did win that battle at both ends and got to the line a lot more than Hillsdale, making more free-throws than the Chargers attempted.

In the spirit of hockey season, which has also just started, your three stars and other player notes after the jump.

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Photo credit: msuspartans.com

The Michigan State Spartans opened their 2011-12 basketball campaign with a relatively easy, somewhat sloppy and fairly intriguing 85-58 exhibition victory over Division II Ferris State. It was a 72 possession game that the Spartans won by starting slowly but steadily pulling away. The final margin of 27 was pretty close to the high-water mark for the game of 30.

As you can see from the home-brewed non-interactive chart below, MSU swept all four factors in beating Ferris:

MSU combined a so-so shooting game (eFG% 48.5) with total domination on the offensive glass to come away with the win. Sound familiar? The Spartans actually came up with more of their own misses than the FSU defenders did, so they were getting a lot of extra bites at the apple. A team has to shoot a lot worse than MSU did to cancel that kind of advantage out.

The poor shooting numbers were largely due to a 3-18 mark on three-pointers and even that was a bit misleading, as they missed their last six attempts after the game was more or less in hand. For the most part MSU won this game in the paint and at the foul line, where they made almost twice as many free-throws as Ferris attempted. The Bulldogs just had no answer for MSU's size and athleticism inside.

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It's finally here! The basketball season couldn't have come at a better time as the Spartans take on the Division II Ferris State Bulldogs. This exhibition game and the following one against Hillsdale will be the only live-game preparation MSU gets before jumping right into the fire against North Carolina and Duke.

If you are able to watch the game (and I'm not sure yet if I will be) you can post your comments here. It is only available as a live stream on the Big Ten Network website. If that's not an option for you it will be replayed Monday at 4pm (ET) on the Big Ten Network.

Bulldog bullets:

• Ferris State won the GLIAC North Division last year with a 24-8 record and reached the Division II Sweet Sixteen.
• The Bulldogs return 8 players from that team, including leading scorer Kenny Brown (9.2 ppg) and senior point guard Dontae Molden.
• Ferris almost took down Indiana in an exhibition game last year, losing in overtime after a potential buzzer-beater in regulation was waved off after replay review.
• The head coach is Bill Sall, in his 10th year at helm with a 141-120 record. He was the GLIAC coach of the year last year.

For the Spartans we will get our first look at incoming freshmen Branden Dawson, Brandan Kearney and Travis Trice. Russell Byrd and Alex Gauna return from redshirt years and Valparaiso transfer Brandon Wood will also see his first action as a Spartan.

The starters are expected to be Draymond Green, Dawson, Derrick Nix, Keith Appling and Wood.

One point of interest will be how the point guard duties are distributed. Sophomore Keith Appling is expected to be the primary replacement for the departed Kalin Lucas, but coach Tom Izzo also wants Appling to become more of a scorer this year so we should see a fair amount of Trice at the point in this game. A newly slimmed down (again) Derrick Nix will be battling Adreian Payne for starts and playing time. Both have shown improvement in the offseason. Enjoy the game.

This being the slow time of the year for basketball (and with player previews on temporary hiatus - more are coming), I thought I'd take my cue from Jason King and Dylan Burkhardt and get the discussion started about newcomers and potential breakout players for the coming year.

Last Fall I posted my picks for sleepers in the Big Ten I thought had a chance to break out. My criteria were pretty rigorous; perhaps too rigorous, in retrospect. To be eligible, players had to

• Play no more than 30% of the available minutes in the prior year (not counting injuries)
  
  OR
• Be an incoming Freshman outside the top-100

The idea was to really reach for guys who would be true surprises. All things considered, I think I did OK. Here are my picks and my highly subjective grading of them:

My only out and out whiff was Taran Buie. You could probably argue that the Nittany Lion mascot has made more positive contributions to the team, and he got popped for a DUI back in 2008. Buie had a sketchy start, got suspended from the team for the remainder of the season and ended up asking for and receiving his release to transfer. It would be hard to have a more unsuccessful season.

I nailed it with Basabe, who looks like a potential all-conference performer, Craft and Gasser. And, although Tim Hardaway, Jr. may have had an even greater impact, I'm still going to pat myself on the back about Jordan Morgan, who became a major part of the Michigan resurgence.

Oladipo and D.J. Byrd were also solid picks. Oladipo probably would have earned me an A if Crean had been willing to play him more minutes and no one else on Indiana would have been a better pick. Ryne Smith may have been more valuable to Purdue than Byrd, thanks to his long-distance shooting prowess, but Byrd did step up admirably in the absence of Robbie Hummel.

There were some teams that just didn't have anyone break out last year. Tyler Griffey was pretty much the only choice for Illinois and he actually regressed. I think I may have been a year early with him, though, as many more minutes will be available for the Illini in the coming year. Michigan State and Minnesota - eh, what are you going to say there?

So I think that gives me about a 2.7 GPA. I'm not sure what the rules are these days, but I think that should keep me eligible for the coming season. I'll probably be coming out with my official picks sometime in the Fall but for now, what do you guys think? Who are the stars in waiting in the conference? I won't hold you strictly to my requirements, but you get bonus points for voluntary compliance.

Our fearless leader, Pete, is taking a week off to visit Peru, where we hope he will relax and renew before returning to tackle the taxing uncertainties of the upcoming football and basketball seasons. I won't pull an Al Haig and declare that "I am in control here", tempting as it is. The blog will be in good hands with Ben, Josh, Dan, Patrick and I available to guide the ship until Pete's return. Meanwhile, here are a few links to tide you over.

Basketball Prospectus | Unfiltered - In case you missed it, Penn State is looking for a new head basketball coach now that Ed DeChellis has left the Big Ten for the Patriot League and the U.S. Naval Academy. There seem to be three reactions to this news: 1) Shock that DeChellis would take such a large status and pay cut; 2) Cynicism that DeChellis could see the prospects for the Lions this year and looked to sell high; and 3) Acknowledgment that DeChellis was making the best deal he could under the circumstances. This article by the ex-Wonk is an effective presentation of #3. It is interesting, nonetheless, that DeChellis waited SO long to quit, putting Penn State in a pretty difficult position for the coming year.

Hope and concern: Michigan State - Big Ten Blog - ESPN - Rittenberg with some shocking claims: MSU is deep at the skill positions and has questions on the offensive line.

MSU's Larry Caper debuts Spartan Dawg TV | The Enquirer | battlecreekenquirer.com - You'll need to set 14:34 aside for this one. You may want to contact your cable provider if you're not currently receiving Spartan Dawg TV with Larry Caper and Le'Veon Bell. Another installment is planned for next week. Oh boy.

College Sports | All teams at U-M, MSU exceed NCAA academic requirements | The Detroit News - Just exactly how the NCAA measures academic progress in its athletic programs and whether its metrics are especially useful are a subject of current discussion. For now, MSU is doing A-OK under the current system.

Kalin Lucas To Work Out For Pistons On Wednesday - Motown Lowdown - SB Nation Detroit - Kalin Lucas, who projects as undrafted in most pre-draft mocks, is working out for the hometown Detroit Pistons. It would be very cool if the Pistons could make something happen here.

Top newcomers in Big Ten basketball - College Basketball - Rivals.com - Jason King of Yahoo takes a look at some new faces in the coming Big Ten basketball season, including Brandon Wood and Branden Dawson of MSU.

Ten breakout performers from Great Lakes Classic | MLive.com - I include this link not only for its assessment of Spartan target James Young's performance at the Great Lakes Classic this past weekend but for its in-print confirmation of an unfortunate development that our friends at Michigan Prep Stars (@MichPrepStars on Twitter) texted me about on Sunday. MSU 2012 verbal and probable Mr. Basketball candidate Matt Costello hurt his ankle during a game and had to be carried off the court. Let's hope it's not serious.

Michigan State Spartans | MSU's Jeff Holm, Kurt Wunderlich get top honors in Big Ten | The Detroit News - It's been a great week, and season, for Michigan State baseball. After clinching a tie for the conference title with Illinois over the weekend the Spartans captured Player of the Year, Pitcher of the Year and Coach of the Year honors, as well as placing 5 players on the All-Big Ten team.

I attended the 2011 King James Shooting Stars Classic this past weekend, otherwise known as the Basketball Grand Tour of Northeastern Ohio. It is an AAU tournament held annually in Akron (and Kent, Barberton, North Canton, Green and various other points) and is one of the marquee events on the circuit. Events like this require planning, research and preparation and even then a certain amount of frustration is inevitable. For example, the major recruiting services list Jabari Parker as playing for the Mac Irvin Fire, which was at a competing event in Merrillville, Indiana the same weekend. Turns out he was playing for the Ferrari team and I missed him completely at the King James. (For what it's worth, Jerry Meyer of Rivals was impressed with him.)

The problems include that kids change teams and jersey numbers at the drop of a hat, team uniforms generally don't have names on them and roster sheets are at a premium: I still haven't figured out a good way to get them other than relying on the kindness of strangers. If you make a bad call, it can have a domino effect: you can end up driving to a far-flung location only to find that the player you were interested in is not on the team you thought and now you're stuck, as your fallback game started at the same time 15 miles away. For example I drove out to a Kent State Annex building hoping to see Tony Farmer (a 2013 forward prospect) and Cha Cha Tucker (2013 PG). Farmer's game was a forfeit, another common aggravation, and I had to watch a fair amount of the All-Ohio Red 10th grade game before I concluded for certain that Keon Johnson of Mansfield was not Tucker. All of this cost me the chance to see Derrick Walton and Steven Haney, who were playing at another venue.

Enough whining. I got to see a lot of basketball, much of it involving players committed to or interested in Michigan State. You can read all you want from the scouting services, but there's nothing like seeing for yourself. I don't pretend to be an evaluator of talent: what follows is simply my take on these players, based on the 1 to 2 more or less structured games I saw them play. Take it for what it is.

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I actually enjoy it when I'm researching one of these posts and unintentionally bring one of my own preconceptions into question. I'll admit that, without knowing exactly where I got it from, I have always pretty much assumed that "most" college players improve from year to year and that the biggest improvement usually comes between the freshman and sophomore years. There's a kernel of truth in both of these statements, but the evidence is less dramatic than I would have thought. Take a look at the following table I found in the 2009 College Basketball Prospectus:^*

Change in Offensive Efficiency:
Returning Division I Players, 2006-2009

Change in ORtg	Freshman to Sophomore	Sophomore to Junior	Junior to Senior
+10 or more	32.6%	23.0%	19.0%
+0 to +10 points	32.1%	34.8%	36.0%
-0 to -10 points	24.5%	29.3%	33.0%
-10 or less	10.8%	12.9%	12.0%
Minimum of 10% of team's minutes played

^*Gasaway, John (Ed.) College Basketball Prospectus 2009-10. Major-Conference Preview. Prospectus Entertainment Ventures, 2009, pg. 84.

About 1/3 of college players make a significant jump as sophomores but a surprising number of players in each year actually regress from the prior year. 42% of juniors and 45% of seniors experience a drop-off. When you have a situation where several players do this in the same year you get, well, the 2010-11 Michigan State Spartans.

Change in Offensive Efficiency:
Michigan State, 2010-2011

Player	ORtg 2010	ORtg 2011	Net Change
Kalin Lucas	110.1	105.8	-4.3
Draymond Green	113.6	106.8	-6.8
Durrell Summers	105.0	97.8	-7.2
Delvon Roe	108.7	107.2	-1.5
Korie Lucious	93.5	91.5	-2.0
Garrick Sherman	97.8	99.2	+1.4
Derrick Nix	93.7	98.3	+4.6
Austin Thornton	83.7	92.8	+9.1

Not only did no major offensive contributor make a dramatic improvement this year, none of them was even able to prevent a decline, this in a year where offense was up across the Big Ten.

So why look at this is an article about Derrick Nix? Of the Spartans who did improve, Garrick Sherman managed to tick up slightly and former walk-on Austin Thornton went from well-below-average to around-replacement-level. Among the regular scholarship players with at least one year under their belt, the only one to show some real progress was Derrick Nix.

I'm not, however, preparing to issue a press release on this. The problem was that, for a variety of reasons, Nix played so little that it didn't have much of an impact. He actually played a smaller percentage of the team's minutes than he did as a freshman and there were four games he didn't even appear in. So it's hard to talk about progress in a year where that happens. Nonetheless, there were a few bright spots in Nix's season that are worth looking at.

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