To perceive how a lot this one stung Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo, whose staff swept the season sequence in opposition to in-state rival Michigan final season and had gained seven in a row over the Wolverines on the Breslin Center courting to 2018, all anybody wanted to see was the consternation twisted into his face in the waning moments, the sport already out of attain. There stood Izzo, already the recipient of a technical foul, bellowing on the referee whereas flanked by assistant coach Saddi Washington, who was there to ensure the Hall of Famer didn’t push issues too far.
So a lot in regards to the previous two-plus hours had irked Izzo. From his staff’s horrifically gradual begin in the opening half to what Michigan State believed was an unfair whistle from the officers. From a livid second-half comeback that lastly showcased what the Spartans appear like at their finest to the ultimate 5 minutes in which Izzo’s crew surrendered a backbreaking 20-7 run after briefly taking the lead.
This was arguably essentially the most anticipated regular-season matchup between the Spartans and Wolverines in many years, the highest-ranked battle this rivalry had ever seen, and for many of Friday night, Izzo knew that Michigan was the higher staff. The Wolverines led for practically 37 minutes in an eventual 83-71 win.
Here are my takeaways:
1. Matchup of old style vs. new faculty swings towards Michigan
EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN: Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo through the second half in opposition to Michigan at Breslin Center on January 30, 2026. (Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images)
As so many teaching icons have opted for retirement in latest years — from Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams to Jay Wright, Jim Boeheim and Jim Calhoun, amongst others — it’s left Izzo as one of many main voices in faculty basketball, a long-toothed sage with extra expertise and extra success than seemingly everybody he faces. When points come up throughout the game, just like the latest hullabaloo surrounding participant eligibility, Izzo’s is the voice that tends to chop via the noise like a knife.
Which is why, towards the top of Friday night time’s sport, it was so tough to not envision a number of the information conferences and different public boards Izzo has used to lament the switch portal in latest years, to rail in opposition to the unfettered participant motion that continues to revolutionize roster constructing throughout the game. The Wolverines arrived on the Breslin Center with a roster infused by the second-best switch portal haul in the nation, in keeping with 247Sports, trailing solely St. John’s. More than 50 spots behind Michigan, at No. 56 total in the switch class rankings, sat the Spartans and their old-school coach.
Like it or not, the discrepancy in how these two rosters had been constructed advised the story of Friday’s sport. All three of the Wolverines’ main scorers had been high-priced additions through the switch portal, which speaks to go coach Dusty May’s fashionable stewardship of this system. Forward Yaxel Lendeborg from UAB scored 26 factors and grabbed 12 rebounds, guard Elliot Cadeau from North Carolina scored 17 factors and dished out six assists and ahead Morez Johnson Jr. from Illinois chipped in 12 factors and 4 rebounds. Even former UCLA middle Aday Mara contributed eight factors and 4 rebounds.
The Spartans, in the meantime, didn’t get a single level from anybody who started their collegiate profession exterior of East Lansing, relying virtually completely on this system’s capacity to develop younger expertise into mature stars. It’s a technique that has served Izzo nicely for ages and labored once more this 12 months with level guard Jeremy Fears Jr. and energy ahead Jaxon Kohler. But competing for nationwide championships is tough when different packages are extra keen to embrace the instruments at everybody’s disposal.
2. Yaxel Lendeborg have to be extra assertive for Michigan to win all of it
EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN: Yaxel Lendeborg dunks in opposition to Michigan State at Breslin Center on January 30, 2026. (Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images)
There are so many issues to love about Lendeborg, who got here to Michigan because the No. 1 total participant in the switch portal following two stellar seasons at UAB. His 6-foot-9, 240-pound body screams prototypical NBA wing, and his measurements aren’t far off from the physique kind of 1 LeBron James. He can, even at that measurement, deal with the ball like a guard and provoke offense when crucial. There’s nothing to query about what he provides defensively, both, routinely flashing sufficient versatility and quickness to protect gamers of all styles and sizes.
Yet as apparent as Lendeborg’s abilities clearly are — he was extensively projected as a first-round decide in final 12 months’s NBA Draft had he determined to show professional as an alternative of transferring to Michigan — there are rumblings about his assertiveness in vital moments. Lendeborg is so unselfish, so keen to defer to his teammates, that he’s solely tried greater than 11 pictures in a sport twice since a non-conference win over La Salle on Dec. 21. From that day ahead, his scoring common is simply 11.9 factors per sport — respectable, definitely, however removed from what most anticipated from a participant of his caliber.
A major chunk of the fear surrounding Lendeborg revolves across the 3-point line, the place he shot 35.7% for UAB final season solely to look at his share plummet to 30.3% to this point this season. The micro view is much more regarding: Lendeborg entered Friday’s sport having solely made seven of his final 40 makes an attempt (17.5%) from past the arc after which shot 1-for-4 in opposition to the Spartans, along with his lone make coming early in the primary half.
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Given the breadth of Lendeborg’s enviable talent set, it’s simple to examine him scoring with ease at pivotal junctures, heaping the initiative on his personal shoulders. But except for one driving layup with 2:33 remaining — a basket that prolonged Michigan’s result in 71-65 — Lendeborg was largely quiet when the Wolverines had been teetering. Nearly 9 minutes of sport time elapsed with out a subject objective for Lendeborg in the second half amid his staff’s most pressure-packed stretch of the season. And whereas he helped safe the victory with six free throws when the rating was out of attain, finally main the staff in scoring and rebounding, he wants to search out extra consistency because the postseason approaches.
3. Overreliance on Fears hints at Michigan State’s ceiling
EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN: Michigan State’s Jeremy Fears Jr. drives to the basket in opposition to Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg on January 30, 2026. (Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images)
Just as they’ve all season, Michigan State’s offensive possession started to fall into a well-known sample throughout Friday’s sport in opposition to the Wolverines. Second after second, dribble after dribble, motion after motion, the present belonged to Fears, whose stranglehold on the ball by no means appeared to relinquish. He probed and penetrated to create his personal pictures. He slalomed his means round screens from the Spartans’ front-court towers. He drew fouls at a powerful charge to fabricate journeys to the free-throw line when the whole lot else he and his teammates tried appeared to fail amid a primary half marred by 27% taking pictures.
Close observers of the Spartans will know that nothing about this was significantly uncommon; it’s the way in which Fears has been pressured to play all season. A obvious lack of depth at each guard positions signifies that Fears, a redshirt sophomore, shoulders one of many heaviest workloads in the Big Ten. He leads the staff in scoring at 14.1 factors per sport and ranks second nationally in assists with 8.9 per sport, trailing solely Purdue level guard Braden Smith in that class. He entered Friday’s sport having assisted on 51.6% of Michigan State’s subject objectives this season — the best charge in the nation, in keeping with KenPom — and ranks fifth in the Big Ten in PRPG! at 5.5, per T-Rank, which measures what number of factors a person contributes to his staff above what a replacement-level participant would produce.
There have been loads of nights when relying so closely on Fears labored simply high quality. He poured in 29 factors and dished out 9 assists in a victory over Rutgers, scored 23 factors and distributed 10 assists in a win over Indiana and chipped in 21 factors and 11 assists in a surprisingly aggressive victory over Cornell. Fears leads the KenPom race to win Big Ten Player of the Year — not too long ago overtaking Smith in that class — for a motive.
But the way in which Friday’s sport unfolded saddled Fears as virtually the one offensive choice at Izzo’s disposal. It was Fears who scored 12 of the staff’s 26 factors in the opening half and Fears who was the one Spartan to make multiple subject objective throughout that stretch. Had small ahead Coen Carr not transformed a brief runner because the first-half buzzer expired, Fears would have been the lone Michigan State participant with greater than three factors on the break. Izzo and his employees will know that such a recipe might show problematic when attempting to mount a prolonged postseason run.
4. Michigan threw the early punch in a battle of elite defenses
EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN: Michigan State’s Jaxon Kohler packing containers out Michigan’s Morez Johnson Jr. on January 30, 2026. (Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images)
Across a lot of Michigan’s unimaginable 19-1 begin to the season, which matches the perfect 20-game file in program historical past, equaling Final Four-bound squads from the 2012-13 and 2018-19 campaigns, the Wolverines claimed the nation’s finest protection. An huge entrance line that includes three gamers listed at 6-feet-9 or taller — together with Mara, a 7-foot-3 behemoth — triggered issues for seemingly each staff Michigan confronted. And starting with a 67-63 highway victory over TCU on Nov. 14, the Wolverines held 16 of their subsequent 18 opponents to 72 factors or fewer.
Slowly however certainly, although, and in trademark Izzo trend, the Spartans started leaning increasingly more closely on their protection amid an equally spectacular stretch in which they gained 19 of their first 21 video games. Aside from an eyebrow-raising 114-97 victory over Cornell — a sport that proved to be a statistical outlier in extra methods than one — Izzo’s staff solely surrendered greater than 70 factors in a sport twice, with a kind of cases coming in an time beyond regulation victory at Rutgers. By the time Michigan State tipped off in opposition to Michigan on Friday night time, the Spartans had leapfrogged their in-state rivals to say the stingiest protection in the nation, in keeping with KenPom.
But that’s not fairly the impression most observers would have shaped after absorbing a primary half that included practically 18 minutes with Michigan in the lead. Instead, it was the visiting Wolverines who imposed themselves defensively in the early going to construct a bonus that swelled as massive as 18 factors. Tipped passes, jumped passing lanes and relentless physicality pressured the Spartans to commit 11 turnovers in the opening half, a sloppy stretch that was additional compounded by icy taking pictures, hitting three subject objectives in 16 makes an attempt to start the sport and solely seven in the primary half total. Izzo stewed and stormed alongside the Spartans’ bench as he watched an opponent out-tough and out-execute his staff early — a rarity throughout his Hall-of-Fame tenure.
4 ½. What’s subsequent?
EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN: Michigan head coach Dusty May through the sport in opposition to the Michigan State Spartans on January 30, 2026. (Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images)
Both groups can have ample time to get better from the psychological and bodily problem that was Friday’s sport earlier than returning to the courtroom subsequent week. The Spartans will journey to Minnesota (10-11 total, 3-7 Big Ten) for a tough take a look at on Feb. 4, whereas the Wolverines return house to host struggling Penn State (9-12 total, 0-10 Big Ten) on Feb. 5.
In some respects, each of these video games function demarcation traces for 2 packages that had been gifted extraordinarily favorable begins to convention play. Michigan, which entered the showdown with Michigan State having performed the 18th-toughest Big Ten slate, in keeping with KenPom, is getting ready to embark on a ending stretch more likely to embody at the very least 4 extra ranked opponents — together with the mouthwatering non-conference tilt in opposition to No. 4 Duke on a impartial ground subsequent month. And Michigan State, which has performed the league’s Seventeenth-toughest schedule, ought to face at the very least three extra ranked groups in the approaching weeks, with two of these video games on the highway.
Everything culminates in the rematch between these groups at Crisler Center on March 8, the ultimate day of the common season. It’s a sport which may nicely have important seeding implications for each the Big Ten match and the NCAA match.
