3 takeaways from Michigan State basketball’s dominant 105-59 win over Valencia

2. Izzo experimenting with lineups

During Michigan State’s first game on Thursday, it was very apparent that Tom Izzo was going with more traditional lineups. That was seen right away with Izzo going with a somewhat predictable starting five of Jeremy Fears, Jaden Akins, Frankie Fidler, Xavier Booker, and Szymon Zapala.

Fast forward to game number two in Valencia and Izzo chose to do the exact opposite.

Izzo decided to experiment with many different lineups, including the starting five which consisted of Jase Richardson, Tre Holloman, Coen Carr, Jaxon Kohler, and Carson Cooper.

Now I have a lot of thoughts on this starting lineup specifically, such as Carr being a better fit at the four (more to come on that) and Kohler and Cooper maybe not being a great pair to play together. But that’s beside the point. Izzo's making an effort to try new things during these games which is something I love to see.

Wins and losses don’t matter in these three games at all. What does matter is figuring out who plays well together and what rotations work best for this group. And there’s no better way to figure that out than by playing some unconventional lineups.

In doing so, it became clear that pairing Kohler and Booker at the four and five may be the best option. On paper, that seems pretty obvious, but it’s nice to see it come together on the court.

Hopefully this trend continues into the Spartan’s third game on Tuesday, because who knows what other lineups we can learn to work together.