Michigan State Basketball: 3 goals for the remainder of the season
With Michigan State basketball facing a huge stretch to finish the season, there are some major goals left to accomplish.
Here are the top remaining goals for the Spartans.
1. Go 6-2 at home (at worst) and 6-3 on the road
Yes, winning every game should be the goal, but let’s live in reality here. Even Tom Izzo’s best teams have inexplicable home losses en route to a Final Four finish. The Spartans' remaining home schedule offers some reprieve from the brutal non-conference schedule with only one ranked team coming to the Breslin Center, No. 9 Illinois on Feb. 6.
The Spartans should be favored in every other home game. With only three ranked teams to start the new year, this could be considered a down year for the Big Ten. Indiana, Maryland, Iowa, and Michigan have all underperformed so far this season and all those teams with the exception of Indiana come to Breslin this season.
The Spartans should have, at minimum, seven wins at home within the next nine games, with one inexplainable loss to, say, Northwestern (looking at you, Boo Buie), and a tough matchup against Illinois.
It should come as no surprise that the Saturday, March 2, matchup at Purdue is already chalked up as a loss. MSU could be going into Mackey Arena 29-0 and Purdue is 0-29 and I’d still bet the mortgage on Purdue winning that game. It has been a nightmare for any Izzo team, and with Purdue firing on all cylinders during the regular season, this is not the year for the upset.
The Spartans also go to Northwestern, Illinois, Maryland, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Penn State, Michigan, and Indiana. Purdue and Illinois are probable losses, with toss-ups against Indiana, Wisconsin (two-game win streak at Kohl Center), and of course, Northwestern for whatever reason. The quintessential Spartan trend is winning in Evanston and Northwestern winning in East Lansing.
Going 13-5 is the bar. This team is playing great, winning close games, and blowing out teams they should and even blowing out a team they shouldn’t have. A 21-10 record going into the Big Ten Tournament is something I think we would all take after the first 10 games of the season.