Michigan State Runs Big Ten Gauntlet, Regular Season Recap

MSU finished the 2024-2025 season with a win over Michigan on Sunday and unfurling the 2024-2025 Big Ten Championship. There was some hoopla at mid-court while the three seniors were having their moment of tradition in kissing the Spartan logo at mid-court, but after that was settled, it only fueled the crowd as the green-and-white confetti fell. Mission accomplished.

The Spartans might feel slightly disrespected as they didn’t move up in the rankings ending at #7/#8 prior to this weekend’s Big Ten Conference Tournament, but this has been an unusual year of the Power 4 conferences. We have seen many losing some unranked games with a handful even at home at higher rate than before the NIL era. Auburn finally looked beatable dropping their final pair of games, including at home to Alabama. Regardless, MSU was picked between 5th and 10th even, depending on who you were reading but the bulk of the “experts” positioned MSU within the top third of the conference. Coach Izzo’s roster changed fairly substantially. He even went out in the portal to land Frankie Filder, who has turned into a fantastic 6th man in finding his niche and roll as the best defender the team has alongside Jaxon Kohler who plays with IQ and energy, and Syzmon Zapala to blend with a health Jeremy Fears Jr. and freshman star Jase Richardson. The result? A true team of players of whom none were selected to any All Big-Ten Team selections since Izzo’s first year (1995-1996) while winning the conference.

.@TheAndyKatz’s First-Team All-Freshman 👏

🏀 Cooper Flagg
🏀 Derik Queen
🏀 Dylan Harper
🏀 Jase Richardson
🏀 Tre Johnson pic.twitter.com/qnOwwhNY3o

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 11, 2025

As far as numbers, MSU finished with only two players averaging double figures as for a whopping part of the year, it was just senior Jaden Akins. Instead, Akins (12.9 ppg) finished with one teammate- Jase at 11.6 ppg. Both actually also averaged over 3 rpg too. Finishing between 7-9 ppg were: Tre Holloman (9.1), Jaxon Kohler (8.1), Coen Carr (7.7), Frankie Filder (7.2) and Jeremy Fears (7.0), showing that their balance can overcome the struggles of 1-2 players as their depth has consistently been 10 deep. By the year’s end, Xavier Booker and Zapala have seen reduced minutes given their struggles and inefficiencies while Fears has shown bursts of what he’s potentially capable of.  They did finish above 30% from 3-pt range, but just barely (30.2) finishing 338th in Division 1 in percentage and 329th on 3-pt rate as well documented but have been able to make a handful when it mattered, including some ones that they didn’t hit.

Of teams with 10+ Quadrant I wins: MSU, Auburn, Tennessee, Houston and Alabama among the Top 15 in the country, but only Auburn (16) currently has more than MSU (12). 17-5 combined in Quad 1-2 with 3 loses in conference and two others to Memphis and then #1 Kansas. Recently, MSU had a 5-game stretch of ranked games, sweeping them all ending on a 7-game win streak before they await their opponent on Friday. Now, they will have some time to rest and regroup as they were clear in their post-game interviews; they are not done and in fact, just beginning.

✅ 1998
✅ 2009
✅ 2012
✅ 2025

Tom Izzo is the #B1GMBBall COY for the fourth time in his legendary career.#B1GToday x @MSU_Basketball pic.twitter.com/twucsbJAY9

— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) March 11, 2025

Coach Izzo was voted Big Ten COY and taking home additional accolades and honors include: Jase Richardson All-Big Ten 3rd Team, Jaden Akins All Big-Ten Defensive team and Andy Katz putting Jase in his 1st-Team All-Freshman squad. Izzo’s second go-around assistant Doug Wojcik was awarded as Big Ten Assistant COY as well. Collectively, this squad finishes with ideal offensive and defensive rankings across the major database metrics the Selection Committee now utilize to better judge for seedings into the NCAA Tournament and appear primed for a deep run as they relied on their defensive tenacity and rebounding to finish 5th in KenPom (25th on offense), Bart Torvik slotted them 6th in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency and 36th in Adjusted Offensive Efficiency as they did an excellent job on both ends of the glass (12th Def and 21st Off per Bart Torvik) along with a stellar defensive effort against the 3-pointer, finishing 3rd in 3-pt Def % in the nation.

This team is short of super stars (Jase’s growing star aside) and plays for each other and the mission, which is normally not the case for an MSU team who generally has a lottery pick or two during a season as magical as this. However, for a blue-collar guy like Coach Izzo, he might tell you he wouldn’t want it another way with this group as they’ve clearly bought into their schemes and don’t care who is shining bright as long as they get the win. Final regular season numbers are below and stay tuned! Big Ten conference tournament preview is upcoming including possible quarterfinal matchups through the championship and how that may or may not, impact their ability secure a 1-seed.

Record/Rankings & More:

26-5 (17-3, 1st-Big Ten) Rankings: #8 AP / #7 Coaches Poll

Updated KenPom- Off: 28th / Def: 5th. Adjusted Tempo: 151st. SOS Net Rtg: 32nd +12.79

Updated Bart Torvik- ADJOE: 36th/ADJDE: 6th / EFF.FGD%: 45.8 (12th) / ORBD %: 35.9 (21st) & DRBD %: 25.0 (12th)

Other Metrics: KPI (6th), ESPN SoR (8th), ESPN BPI (11th), WAB (6th), T-Rank: 12th — #15 in FT % (78.9%), #13 in FTM/game (17.5)/ #38 in FTA/game (22.2)

FULL KenPom Stats: https://kenpom.com/index.php

FULL Bart Torvik Stats: https://barttorvik.com/#

FULL Warren Nolan Stats: https://www.warrennolan.com/basketball/2025/net-teamsheets-plus#google_vignette

FULL Team Rankings Stats: https://www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-basketball/team/michigan-st-spartans/stats