Michigan State Basketball: 3 role players who could become stars in 2020-21

Michigan State basketball is going to need some guys to step up to the plate this season and become stars if the Spartans want to make a title run.

Tom Izzo has been gushing about his team this offseason, stating that he feels good about the overall roster and he has a fun squad to coach.

Just because Michigan State is losing Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman doesn’t mean that the Spartans won’t be competing for a fourth straight Big Ten title. We’ve seen underrated rosters compete for titles before and the most recent happened in 2018-19 the season after the Spartans lost Miles Bridges and Jaren Jackson Jr. and Josh Langford halfway through the year and still made the Final Four.

This year’s team may feel the same way with Tillman and Cassius being gone after stellar careers and many are writing them off when teams like Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin are trending up.

Cassius and Tillman both had interesting career paths to the top of the roster as team leaders and All-Big Ten performers. They both started out on the bench as role players and became stars — Tillman almost did overnight. He took over for an injured Nick Ward and never looked back.

If Michigan State is going to take that next step and repeat as Big Ten champion for the fourth straight year, it’ll need these three guys to step up and become stars (outside of the obvious stars for 2020-21).