Tom Izzo should feel slightly better about UConn loss after seeing what Huskies did to Purdue

Florida, Illinois, and Duke are leading the national title conversation this season and it’s been that way for a few months now, but there’s a fourth team that should definitely be in that discussion, too. And no, it’s not Michigan State — Tom Izzo would agree so far.

It’s UConn.

The Huskies came to the Breslin Center last week and controlled the entire game outside of one minutes and came away with a huge exhibition win without Braylon Mullins.

The Spartans lost 78-70 in one of the sloppiest games that we’ve seen the Spartans play in a while — it was followed by an equally sloppy game against Marquette. It was concerning to see the No. 6 team in the country have so many clear flaws while UConn exploited each one of them and looked like a completely different tier of team.

Michigan State found out that it has a lot of work to do fortunately before the regular season tipped off. It was a concerning loss, but it turns out the Huskies are actually really, really good.

UConn hosted Purdue for an exhibition game to end its preseason schedule and it dominated with Mullins and Silas Demary Jr. struggling offensively — and I mean dominated.

Purdue is obviously nowhere near the same team as last year when Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn leading the way but as long as Matt Painter is the head coach, the Boilermakers are going to be Big Ten contenders. So that’s what made this 23-point loss even more shocking. Purdue has been one of the best teams in the Big Ten for years and the Boilers rarely lose a game this lopsided.

They’re usually either on the opposite side of a blowout or they’re finding ways to make games like this way closer than they should be.

Maybe this Purdue team just doesn’t have it, but a 23-point win with its two best players combining for just 17 points on 5-of-17 shooting is proves that UConn is going to be a lot scarier than people expected.

And while Michigan State’s exhibition loss to the Huskies was concerning, maybe Izzo feels a little better knowing his team played really poorly and still had a chance to beat this wagon.

Michigan State should’ve already had its wake-up call

Rarely does a wake-up call happen this early in the season for Michigan State, but that’s what the UConn and Marquette games should have been. The Spartans were so clearly outclassed in both games that these guys should be fired up about it. Izzo is fired up, but he admitted on Thursday that his team is lacking communication so far.

Jeremy Fears and Coen Carr need to act as the veteran captains that they are and get these younger guys fired up to turn things around.

Playing this poorly heading into the season is less than ideal, but it’s better than it happens now than in March.

Hey, maybe this is the annual February slump happening a little over three months early. We can all hope that this is flushed out of the system when the season officially starts on Monday.

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