It’s been a few days since the sensational opening-night doubleheader that featured both Michigan State and Indiana, but the attention the Armed Forces Classic in Honolulu brought to the Big Ten deserves further discussion. Unlike most other sports, college basketball rarely opens its season with a number of truly marquee match-ups. Coaches instead typically opt for easy wins against low-majors out of fear of being exposed. This strategy may make sense for individual programs, but it hardly does the sport any favors. This year, however, we were treated to two compelling bouts featuring a quartet of top 15 teams. Each game was action-packed and came down to the wire, as the Spartans lost to Arizona on a last-second layup and the Hoosiers eked out a 103-99 overtime win over Kansas. Kudos should be given to Tom Izzo and Tom Crean for ignoring the “risk” of being exposed early. These coaches instead saw the event as an opportunity to showcase their programs to a captive Friday night national audience, in addition to supporting the brave men and women of the armed forces on Veterans Day.

Miles Bridges (#22) may not have been on a winning team, but he was the star of opening night (Fansided photo).

In the first game, Michigan State charged to a big early lead before eventually giving up a coast-to-coast layup to lose at the buzzer. While the Spartans missed an opportunity for a nice early resume win, they did get to showcase their celebrated freshmen class. Miles Bridges was especially spectacular, contributing 21 points, seven rebounds and an early candidate for the dunk of the year. In the second game, Indiana outlasted Kansas in a back-and-forth contest that went to overtime. The impressive win against the perennial Big 12 favorite was propelled by a 26-point performance from James Blackmon, Jr., who looked completely healthy after last year’s season-ending surgery.

Both the Spartans and Hoosiers emerged from opening night with a number of positive developments, but it’s a long season and passing judgment now on either team would be hasty. Most observers, however, walked away with the impression that both schools will once again be battling for a Big Ten championship and deep NCAA Tournament runs. In other words, by virtue of being in the event and passing the eye test, both teams have already won the game of early-season exposure, headlining opening night in a memorable event. What Crean said on his radio show afterward might as well go for the perception of the entire league: “In nine years, it’s, if not the best thing we’ve ever done non-league, it’s one of them.”

Alex Moscoso (170 Posts)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2016 at 10:01 am by Alex Moscoso and is filed under big ten, microsites. Tagged: Curtis Jones, indiana, Indiana Hoosiers, james blackmon jr, michgan state, michigan state spartans, Miles Bridges, tom crean. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.