A few takeaways from Miami‘s impressive eight-point win over Michigan State tonight:
- The Hurricanes should be near the top of the ACC. This isn’t so much a reflection of the Hurricanes being a great team as it is of how weak the ACC is this season (outside of Duke). North Carolina and North Carolina State have the pieces to be very good (particularly the Wolfpack), but we haven’t seen any indications of that so far this season. The Hurricanes are a step below the Blue Devils and likely the Wolfpack too when they get their act together, but they should be in the next tier competing against UNC, FSU, and Maryland. This win should also be a resume-booster when Selection Sunday rolls around as the Spartans will probably pick up plenty of solid wins in the Big Ten making this win even more impressive for the Hurricanes. The improvement Miami has shown from its embarrassing loss to Florida Gulf Coast can be explained in large part by the return of Durand Scott, but he didn’t do it by himself tonight as he was helped out by Trey McKinney Jones and Shane Larkin, who both had big games in scoring 33 of the team’s 67 points.
- Michigan State is still going through growing pains without Draymond Green, who was a huge part of the Spartans’ success last season, and it has been evident early in the year even if they were able to pull out a last-second win earlier this month against Kansas. In his postgame press conference, Tom Izzo stressed the difficulty he has had finding a rotation with the injuries the team has had so far this season. He also harped on his team’s inability to guard ball screens and after initially trying to go with the “unnamed player” line, he called out Keith Appling, who he said had his worst game as a Spartan. As always we expect this Spartan program to be around in March, but they still have quite a bit of work left before they are ready to compete against Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio State and even then they may not have enough to be a serious threat to those three.
- He went through some rough patches tonight as you would expect from a freshman returning from injury, but it is clear that Gary Harris will become the go-to guy for this Michigan State team if they are going to approach their typical lofty standards. Travis Trice and Keith Appling are solid players, but Harris is the one with the potential to become a star and is the only Spartan who has the ability to get to the basket when the team needs him to do so. As Izzo pointed out in the postgame press conference, Harris is not at 100% as he recovers from a shoulder injury, but when he does he should be a force in the Big Ten. Harris is one of the most highly touted players to come to Michigan State and while it is still early in the season all signs are indicating that he will live up to the hype.
Miami Students Rush the Court.
