Coming off a shaky performance to end the Rutgers game on Senior Day, Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo joked that he made sure it was close to give Michigan some confidence.
Sunday’s season finale is going to be the game of the day in college basketball, and Michigan is a heavy favorite, per Vegas. It’s a battle between top-10 teams, so it should be at least competitive, but no experts are predicting a Michigan State win.
Will the Spartans pull off the “upset”?
Let’s get bold ahead of Sunday’s rematch.
1. Coen Carr scores 20 again
The last time Coen Carr scored 20 points, he followed that up with a 19-point performance. He’s never scored 20 in back-to-back games in his college career, but that changes on Sunday.
After one of his best games as a Spartan against Rutgers, Carr has gained the confidence he needs to play well against the best team in the Big Ten. He’s going to be aggressive early, and Michigan won’t be able to corral him in the fastbreak game.
Carr is going to throw down several rim-rocking dunks that’ll silence the Crisler Center crowd and he’ll even hit a couple of 3-pointers to really punish Michigan’s defense for not defending him.
The junior will finish with 20 points and five rebounds with a couple of huge blocks.
2. Jeremy Fears has first 20/10 game in a month
It’s hard to believe that one of the favorites to win Big Ten Player of the Year hasn’t had a 20 and 10 game in over a month. The last time that Jeremy Fears Jr. had 20 points and 10 assists in a game was on Feb. 7 against Illinois. What happened during that game? He carried the Spartans to an overtime win against a top-five team.
Can his 20 and 10 game on Sunday afternoon carry him to another top-five win? Michigan State is 3-0 this season when Fears puts up that line, so we’ll see if this leads to another big victory.
Fears will overcome the excessive boo birds to have one of his best games of the year.
3. Michigan State pulls off the upset
I’ve slowly been talking myself into this for the past couple of weeks, especially since that win at Purdue, but Michigan State has a chance to win out in a stretch that was expected to be incredibly difficult to end the regular season: UCLA, Ohio State, at Purdue, at Indiana, Rutgers, and at Michigan.
After listening to Izzo speak after the Senior Day fiasco, he sounds like he’s more motivated than ever to pull off the “upset” in Ann Arbor.
Michigan is nearly a 10-point favorite, but Michigan State was in similar territory before the Purdue game and the Spartans hadn’t won at Mackey since 2014. Crisler is going to be hostile, but it’s no Mackey. This is going to be an instant classic and MSU will have to crawl out of a second-half hole to take a lead (again), but this time the Spartans hold on.