EAST LANSING — It’s pretty clear to UConn head coach Dan Hurley where Michigan State is lacking right now. He should know, having won two national titles and made three Final Fours in the last four seasons.
“If their team could figure out the center thing, you know, and they’ve got three viable guys there that all bring different things,” Hurley said after beating the Spartans 78-70 on Tuesday night. “I think that once they get this center thing together, I think they've got one of the best teams in the country.”
The biggest concern for sixth-ranked MSU entering this season was at center. That concern grew as Hurley’s Huskies out-physicaled and out-muscled the Spartans in their own building.
Even more eyes are going to be on the group of Anton Bonke, Jesse McCulloch, and Ethan Taylor moving forward. Tom Izzo says he’s not going to “change the quarterback” or mess with the starting lineup yet, but the data points from exhibition season have made it the center of the discussion.
Analyzing Center Play vs. UConn
Bonke is still the starter, but that may be in name only. He only played six minutes on Tuesday, and he remained on the bench for the entirety of the second half.
“He just didn't seem as ready to play on a couple of things, but it wasn’t all his fault, too,” Izzo said about Bonke’s benching. “There's no clarity yet, because we're one game and a half in. The clarity will come probably five games, seven games from now.”
Bonke wrapped up with just two points, three rebounds, and a minus-5 plus/minus during his limited time on the court. He struggled a bit during the Incarnate Word exhibition on Oct. 2, too, scoring just four points with three rebounds across 15 minutes of action.
Taylor and McCulloch have really been outplaying and outproducing Bonke so far. McCulloch dropped 20 points against UIW while starting at the four, and he had another eight points and five rebounds on Tuesday.
Taylor hasn’t really had the counting stats that McCulloch has had, but it’s felt like he’s been making a more positive impact on the floor through two exhibitions than Bonke, particularly with the athleticism he provides defensively.
“I was really kind of pleased with Ethan Taylor,” Izzo said. “Jesse did some good things at different positions, but he also didn't rebound as well on the defensive end, even though he got three.”
What It Means Moving Forward
What seems clear following Incarnate Word and Connecticut is that Bonke may not be the clear-cut starting center he seemed like he would be entering the year. Some of that isn’t necessarily his struggles in those games, but because Taylor and McCulloch have done well, it's become a competition.
Izzo called Taylor a “surprise” during the team’s internal media day this past week. He’s also said McCulloch had the best offseason of anyone on the team and that McCulloch essentially never left campus following the Sweet Sixteen loss to UConn.
“No, I'm not going to make a decision one game in on whether I change the lineup or not,” Izzo said. “I'm looking at what lineups fit the other guys sometimes. You know, maybe I put them in the wrong position. You know, maybe it should be Bonke with maybe Coen (Carr) in as an athletic four-man. Maybe it would be this and that, so that's not all their fault.”
The starting spot is still Bonke’s, at least for now. Izzo also watches Bonke go up against his teammates every day during practice, at the end of the day. If it were that clear that Bonke shouldn’t be the starting center, he wouldn’t be the starting center. This first game against an elite opponent has given Izzo a lot to think about. The loss has a real silver lining for him, too.
“There's a sick part of me that is kind of happy we got our butts kicked because some of the reasons we got our butts kicked were things that we worked on,” he said. “And so now the film will do the talking, not the coach. The coach is going to do some talking tomorrow too, I promise. But the film is going to do more talking than the coach.”
It sounds a little moral victory-ish, but Izzo also pointed out that this exhibition was much closer than last year’s exhibition at UConn. The Huskies led that one by 19 at one point in the second half and controlled things even more so than they did on Tuesday.
“Last year he (Hurley) said to me, more or less, almost, ‘You're in trouble. You're not very good right now,’” Izzo recalled. “And I agreed. Last year, I didn't feel we deserved to be on the same floor. This year, I really did. It's just we didn't do the things you needed to do to win the game.”
The exhibition last season didn’t end up being the last time MSU and the Huskies faced off. Maybe, just maybe, it was an NCAA Tournament or even Final Four preview. Hurley believes the Spartans have a shot.
“‘Get your center room right,’” Hurley recalled saying to McCulloch in the handshake line. “‘You guys are gonna have a chance to play in the stadium here in Detroit in April.’ We root for Michigan State when they’re playing. I mean, we’ve got the utmost respect… Go Sparty.”
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