Michigan State Basketball: Nick Ward, Xavier Tillman in position battle

Michigan State basketball has less talent than a year ago, but Tom Izzo still has a lineup issue with big men Nick Ward and Xavier Tillman vying for time.

Can Nick Ward and Xavier Tillman play together? That’s the question Michigan State basketball fans will be asking this season. Sure, there are plenty of unknowns in the backcourt, but the duo of Ward and Tillman could be dominant if they figure out how to work together.

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There were similar lineup issues last season and Tom Izzo never exactly figured them out. He never swayed from starting Ward, Miles Bridges and Jaren Jackson even though a lot of fans clamored for using Bridges at the four and Jackson at the five. Now, with Bridges and Jackson gone, Ward is a must in the lineup, and after playing a season-high 22 minutes in the loss to Syracuse, Tillman moved himself closer to that category.

Before Tillman broke out in the NCAA tournament, it was assumed that Ward would be headed for 30-plus minutes per game for the 2018-19 season and Tillman would get the rest. If both players improve as expected in the offseason, Izzo will have to play them together considering they are two of the best four players on the team (along with Cassius Winston and Joshua Langford). Will it work? That’s what everyone is asking and since it’s only summer, no one can answer that question with full confidence.

To start the season, it’s likely Izzo will turn to trusted Kenny Goins in the four spot. There’s a chance Aaron Henry claims that position at some point after impressing media members the most at Moneyball Pro-Am, but he’s not the same talent of Jackson or Bridges and Izzo usually doesn’t budge into moving a guy like him into the starting lineup. And while the 6-foot-6 Henry is impressing, he’s also only a three-star recruit and not even listed in the top 100 over at 247Sports.

The problem with Ward, Tillman and Goins is that none of them can shoot from outside. All of them have been said to add a three-point shot, but playing in the summer isn’t equivalent to Division 1 basketball. Ward and Tillman are gunning it up from deep, yet Ward wasn’t even allowed to shoot from outside the paint last season. Goins went through the same thing in the media last summer, but he ended up going 4-of-15 from three in the season.

Ward has been a steady free-throw shooter in his first two years, shooting 62.1 percent last season (Tillman at 65.6 percent), but being a mediocre shooter at the line doesn’t translate to three-point gunner. It’s a good rule of thumb that if you can’t make free throws consistently, you definitely can’t make threes.

Three-pointers or not, the Ward and Tillman combo may be the route Izzo takes into certain matchups. Playing against smaller teams, it’ll be close to impossible for both Ward and Tillman to defend on the perimeter. Against bigger teams in the Big Ten, it makes a little more sense. But while fans will complain all season about getting the two bigs more time, it’s hard to see them playing more than 5-to-10 minutes per game with each other. They are big bodies that lack quickness, which is the opposite strategy everyone else in the country is taking.

If someone wants to run on the Spartans, it will be too easy if those two are on at the same time. That includes the early non-conference games against Kansas and Florida, as well as whichever team they play in the ACC and the Las Vegas Invitational. Unless Ward and Tillman turn into Shaq offensively and score whenever they touch the ball, it’ll be hard to justify playing them together from the start.

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But hey, they are both skinnier and jacking up threes in summer ball, so they can both play point guard and run the team during the regular season, right?