Michigan State Basketball: Final player grades for 2018-19 season

Bench

Michigan State’s bench was shallow by the end of the season due to injuries, but the Spartans had some decent production from the reserves for most of the year.

While Xavier Tillman started the season as a reserve and even won Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year and Nick Ward ended the year on the bench, both were included in the starters portion of this report card. Which bench players got the best grades this season?

Kyle Ahrens would have gotten a higher grade had he remained healthy all year, but that’s not necessarily his fault. When he was healthy and playing at a high level, he provided a nice scoring touch from the perimeter and he wasn’t afraid to drive. His back gave out on him near the end of the season to the point that he could barely stand up off the bench and then there was the season-ending ankle sprain. Tough year, but he’ll be a major contributor as a senior.

The future is bright for Gabe Brown. The Belleville-native showed early on in the season that he could be the perfect 3-point marksman off the bench, making over 40 percent early on, and he even stepped up in the Elite Eight against LSU. He finished the season with a 37 percent rate behind the arc, averaging 2.3 points in 7.9 minutes. He can be a nice deep threat, and even slasher, for the Spartans as long as he can improve that defense to keep him on the floor.

The first year of Foster Loyer didn’t go as the Mr. Basketball award winner had hoped as Cassius Winston’s backup. He was clearly too small and not strong enough to compete right away and that kept him to just 5.8 minutes per game in 36 appearances. He had a couple of big games, breaking 10 points, but he never evolved into the player who could give Cassius a rest off the bench. He averaged 1.6 points and 0.9 assists per game.

Thomas Kithier got off to a strong start to his season but didn’t quite get the minutes near the end of the year that he expected. He averaged 5.8 minutes in 31 appearances, scoring 1.6 points with 1.3 rebounds and shot a healthy 79 percent from the floor. He has an opportunity to be a critical post player next year and beyond.

Though he didn’t play much, therefore receiving an “INC” for incomplete, Marcus Bingham Jr. showed flashes of what he could become in a Spartan uniform. He appeared in 24 games, averaging 3.5 minutes and scoring just 1.0 point with 1.1 rebounds. He played less than 70 total minutes on the season so you can’t grade him on such a small sample size, but he definitely has room to grow with that high ceiling of his.

For good measure, we are including Josh Langford even though he played a little less than half the season. He played through the end of December, averaging 15.0 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game while shooting 44 percent from the field and 40 percent from beyond the arc. He gets an incomplete because it’s hard to judge him on a handful of games, but if he played all year and kept up that scoring and shooting touch, he would have been close to an A/A-.