Michigan State Basketball: 3 reasons to be optimistic about 2020-21 season

2. Underrated depth

One would think that when a team loses guys like Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman, depth would take a massive hit. That’s not the case with the Spartans.

While those are two massive pieces to the puzzle, almost everyone else (outside of Kyle Ahrens) returns from last year’s Big Ten title squad and the Spartans are adding a couple of four-stars in Mady Sissoko and AJ Hoggard. Those two are going to have to grow up fast and play big minutes to make up for the losses of Winston and Tillman.

Sissoko and Hoggard add some much-needed depth both in the post and on the perimeter but that’s not it. Outside of the starting five, the Spartans have guys like Gabe Brown, Marcus Bingham Jr., Josh Langford is back and hopefully healthy, Malik Hall, Thomas Kithier, Julius Marble and Foster Loyer.

There are 11-12 guys who could compete at a high level on the roster and that’s the kind of depth that can wear other teams down and when Tom Izzo has teams that are deep from 1-12, they usually contend for titles.

Rocket Watts, Aaron Henry and Joey Hauser are all locks to start, but they will have plenty of talent behind them pushing for some playing time.