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Welcome to The Final Four Is Not on the Schedule discussion board. A forum for the serious and casual MSU fan. Opinions welcome – stay respectful.
If you haven't already listened to the podcast on the subject, please do so. I'll try not to repeat their review. Below is the schedule and I've added in the opponent's 2022-23 record (unless another location is stated, the game is in East Lansing):
10/25 - Hillsdale College (Exh.) (23-7)
10/29 - Tennessee (Exh.) (25-11)
11/6 - James Madison (22-11)
11/9 - Southern Indiana (16-17)
11/14 - Duke (Chicago, IL) (27-9)
11/17 - Butler (14-18)
11/19 - Alcorn State (18-14)
11/23 - Arizona (Thousand Palms, CA) (28-7)
11/28 - Georgia Southern (17-16)
12/16 - Baylor (Detroit, MI) (23-11)
12/18 - Oakland (13-19)
12/21 - Stony Brook (11-22)
12/29 or 30 - Indiana State (23-13)
Three tough neutral site games though Detroit is much closer for MSU (than Baylor), but so then is Palm Springs closer for Arizona. A couple/few other games may also prove challenging (repeating Rod/Eric points) in Butler (will they improve in Thad Motta's 2nd year?), Indiana State and perhaps even James Madison.
By the standards of other schools, this is still a darn tough schedule. Nonetheless, by Izzo's standards, this isn't particularly the murderer's row of teams and travel we're used to seeing.
Was that just how it fell or was that intentional? In other words, is Izzo trying to balance tough early season games against being able to get a better seed? Seeding hasn't been kind to us of late and I couldn't argue against it if that factored in. What are your thoughts on this or anything else related for that matter?
Overall, even though it's not the usual murderer's row, I'm still happy. There should be plenty of games to spread out minutes and provide playing experience to all sorts of lineups plus the freshmen. On a more personal level, I live out of state but will be in town for the added Tennessee exhibition. So, I'll try to pick up tickets and attend that one. Beyond that, I'm looking forward to the Lions and Spartans back-to-back on Thanksgiving and would love to see another win against Duke (would that make three in a row?)!
Kindness is free.
I was thinking that the slightly less rigorous schedule will provide a great opportunity for our freshmen and sophs to get some playing time so they’ll be more seasoned for the conference schedule.
Full schedule now available.
2023-24 Michigan State Men’s Basketball Schedule
Wednesday Oct. 25 HILLSDALE COLLEGE (exhibition) East Lansing, Mich.
Sunday Oct. 29 TENNESSEE (exhibition) East Lansing, Mich.
Monday Nov. 6 JAMES MADISON East Lansing, Mich.
Thursday Nov. 9 SOUTHERN INDIANA East Lansing, Mich.
Tuesday Nov. 14 vs. Duke (Champions Classic) Chicago, Ill.
Friday Nov. 17 BUTLER East Lansing, Mich.
Sunday Nov. 19 ALCORN STATE (Acrisure Classic) East Lansing, Mich.
Thursday Nov. 23 vs. Arizona (Acrisure Classic) Palm Springs, Calif.
Tuesday Nov. 28 GEORGIA SOUTHERN East Lansing, Mich.
Tuesday Dec. 5 WISCONSIN * East Lansing, Mich.
Sunday Dec. 10 Nebraska * Lincoln, Neb.
Saturday Dec. 16 Baylor Detroit, Mich.
Monday Dec. 18 OAKLAND East Lansing, Mich.
Thursday Dec. 21 STONY BROOK East Lansing, Mich.
Saturday Dec. 30 INDIANA STATE East Lansing, Mich.
Thursday Jan. 4 PENN STATE * East Lansing, Mich.
Sunday Jan. 7 Northwestern * Evanston, Ill.
Thursday Jan. 11 Illinois * Champaign, Ill.
Sunday Jan. 14 RUTGERS * East Lansing, Mich.
Thursday Jan. 18 MINNESOTA * East Lansing, Mich.
Sunday Jan. 21 Maryland * College Park, Md.
Friday Jan. 26 Wisconsin * Madison, Wis.
Tuesday Jan. 30 MICHIGAN * East Lansing, Mich.
Saturday Feb. 3 MARYLAND * East Lansing, Mich.
Tuesday Feb. 6 Minnesota * Minneapolis, Minn.
Saturday Feb. 10 ILLINOIS * East Lansing, Mich.
Wednesday Feb. 14 Penn State * University Park, Pa.
Saturday Feb. 17 Michigan * Ann Arbor, Mich.
Tuesday Feb. 20 IOWA * East Lansing, Mich.
Sunday Feb. 25 OHIO STATE * East Lansing, Mich.
Saturday Mar. 2 Purdue * West Lafayette, Ind.
Wednesday Mar. 6 NORTHWESTERN * East Lansing, Mich.
Sunday Mar. 10 Indiana* Bloomington, Ind.
Wed. – Sun. March 13-17 Big Ten Tournament Minneapolis, Minn.
Tues. – Wed. March 19-20 NCAA Tournament – First Four Dayton, Ohio
Thurs. – Sun. March 21-24 NCAA Tournament – First & Second Rounds Multiple Locations
Thurs. – Sun. March 28-30 NCAA Tournament – Regionals Multiple Locations
Sat. – Mon. April 6 & 8 NCAA Final Four Phoenix, Ariz.
Oops, scratch that last line -- I forgot the Final Four Is Not On The Schedule!!!
Kindness is free.
My too early prediction is 26-5 overall and 16-4 in the Big Ten. Losses are as follows:
Nov 23 vs Arizona in Palm Springs. They're bound to lose at least one pre-B10 game and this might be the toughest in terms of 3 timezones away against a good opponent. Besides, out of spite for Duke, I don't want to pick them to lose what's arguably the next toughest game.
Jan 7 at Northwestern. As always, the Big Ten will be tough on the road. This would be their first B10 loss and make their B10 record 3-1.
Jan 11 at Illinois. Some early (but brief) panic as this would drop them to 3-2.
Jan 26 at Wisconsin. More tough road travelling makes the B10 record 6-3.
Mar 2 at Purdue. We'd win in East Lansing, but unfortunately we don't play them at home. After an 8-game win streak, record afterwards is 14-4 before we win out and finish the B10 at 16-4. I'll say that's good enough for first or tied for first.
Key wins would be Duke in Chicago (even though we mostly lose to them in meaningless games while doing much better in the Dance), Baylor in Detroit, at Michigan, and at Indiana (in the last game of the year).
Kindness is free.
That record seems realistic in the hypothetical. I hope it plays out more or less like this. A 16-4 record might give us a conference title as I think teams will be more effective against Purdue this year, even though I think Purdue should actually be better than last year. I think Izzo competes better at Madison since Ryan left, and I should be at the game, so I hope you are wrong there. Still, they might still lose at Indiana to finish the season to make up for it.