Tag: Andy Katz

Joey Hauser listed in Andy Katz’s top 5 Big Ten basketball transfers power rankings

Hauser, who is a junior forward, is averaging 11.8 points (second on the team) and 8.1 rebounds per game (leads the team) so far this season

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One of the bright spots for Michigan State this season has been new-comer Joey Hauser — who is playing in his first season as a Spartan after transferring from Marquette. Hauser’s fast start to the season has him listed in Andy Katz’ top five Big Ten transfers power rankings.

Hauser, who is a junior forward, is averaging 11.8 points (second on the team) and 8.1 rebounds per game (leads the team) so far this season. That kind of production has earned some high praise from Katz, who ranked him No. 3 amongst Big Ten transfers.

Here’s a bit of what Katz had to say about Hauser:

“He’s given (Michigan State) experience, a little face-up scoring and overall leadership for the Spartans here at the beginning of the Big Ten,” Katz said.

You can see Katz’ entire top five new Big Ten transfers in the tweet below:

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Michigan State listed as No. 7 seed in Andy Katz’ latest bracket prediction

Michigan State is slated to face BYU in the first round of Andy Katz’s bracket prediction released on Tuesday afternoon.

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Michigan State basketball was once considered a No. 1 seed in bracket projections, but that high mark has since vanished in recent weeks. At least the Spartans are still safely in the big dance as of right now, according to Andy Katz of NCAA.com.

Katz released his latest bracket prediction on Tuesday afternoon, listing the Spartans as a No. 7 seed. Michigan State is slated to face BYU in the first round of Katz’s bracket prediction.

You can click here or on the tweet below to see the entire bracket.

Katz has a total of 11 Big Ten teams in his tournament prediction, including Michigan, Illinois and Iowa all as No. 2 seeds. Wisconsin (No. 3 seed), Rutgers (No. 4 seed), Minnesota (No. 4 seed), Ohio State (No. 5 seed), Indiana (No. 8 seed), Northwestern (No. 8 seed) and Purdue (No. 10 seed) are the remaining Big Ten teams in the prediction.

Spartan fans probably won’t be happy with a No. 7 seed, but the good news is Michigan State has plenty of opportunities to improve that seed in the coming weeks. Four of the Spartans’ next six games are against AP Top 25 teams so picking up some wins in those match-ups will surely bolster their resume.

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Andy Katz ranks Michigan State Basketball No. 4 overall in his Power 36 rankings

Michigan State was ranked No. 4 in NCAA.com analyst Andy Katz’s latest rankings.

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Michigan State Basketball entered the season underrated by many as they lost stalwart veterans Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman to the NBA Draft. The Spartans did creep their way up the AP Poll on Monday to No. 8, but another college basketball analyst has a different take.

Andy Katz of NCAA.com puts out his Power 36 rankings every week, and this week he has MSU ranked all the way up at No. 4 overall. Here is his full top ten:

1. Gonzaga

2. Baylor

3. Iowa

4. Michigan State

5. Illinois

6. Wisconsin

7. Villanova

8. Kansas

9. Richmond

10. Duke

As you can see, Duke is behind MSU in this ranking. The two teams will face off on Tuesday.

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Andy Katz puts Josh Langford in top 5 for Jerry West Award

Joshua Langford has a lot of eyes on him this upcoming season in his return. Including Andy Katz who has him as an award contender.

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Andy Katz has ranked his top 20 candidates for the Jerry West Award. Ā The Jerry West Award is for the best Shooting Guard in college basketball. Ā Katz has put MSU’s very own Joshua Langford number three in his rankings. Ā  Ā He announced his rankings on his March Madness 365 podcast available on Spotify or Apple.

Katz put Kentucky freshman BJ Boston and Northern Iowa’s AJ Green ahead of Langford. Ā Boston is a highly touted prospect and will have a lot of eyes on him as he is a projected lottery pick in 2021. Ā NBA Draft Room, even has him going 3rd to the Detroit Pistons. Ā Green is entering his junior year at Northern Iowa and averaged 19.7 PPG on 41.6 percent shooting from field.

Langford is gearing up for his upcoming comeback season after missing the better part of the past two seasons. Ā Last week, Dick Vitale tweeted that he is hoping for a good and healthy season for Langford.

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Andy Katz includes Michigan State as a top pick for Final Four contenders

Andy Katz talked about who has the best chances to make the Final Four on the March Madness 365 podcast, including MSU as one of his picks.

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Andy Katz revealed his top 10 contenders to make the Final Four this year on the March Madness 365 podcast. Ā He includes Michigan State as one of those teams and three other Big Ten teams.

The other teams he included are Gonzaga, Baylor, Villanova, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky.

Andy Katz was joined by Fox Sports’ Mark Titus and they selected the Spartans because of the depth of the team. The Spartans are coming off a season in which they went 22-9 overall and 14-6 in conference. They were Big Ten co-champions as well. Ā MSU was perhaps one of the favorites to advance to the Final Four based on previous results before the pandemic happened.

The Spartans just revealed who their captains were a few days ago. Expect these three guys to lead the Spartans to possibly making a Final Four run this year.

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Multiple reports indicate MSU unlikely to play in Gavitt Games

A pair of reports from college basketball insiders indicates the Spartans won’t take place in this year’s Gavitt Tipoff Games

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The reports keeping coming and the puzzle pieces keep sliding into place on Michigan State basketballā€™s 2020-21 schedule.

Yesterday, I published an article on the latest status of the Spartansā€™ 2020-21 college basketball schedule with a few unknowns still lingering. One of those question marks was the Gavitt Tipoff Games — which traditionally pits the Big Ten and Big East, similar to the ACC-Big Ten Challenge — but a pair of reports from college basketball insiders indicates the Spartans wonā€™t take place in this yearā€™s event.

Andy Katz of NCAA.com reported the Big East is ā€œcommittedā€ to playing their agreed-upon series of games with the Big 12, appearing to put the Gavitt Games on the back burner for the league. Katz added that a handful of Big Ten-Big East games could be played if the teams are located close to each other, such as Northwester-DePaul or Nebraska-Creighton.

Earlier in the day, Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports tweeted that the Big East has a target window of Dec. 12 – 23 to play potentially four conference games, which basically takes up the entire back half of December from playing non-conference games.

So with Michigan State having no nearby Big East opponents, and their schedule basically booked up through Dec. 9 and the Big Ten schedule most likely starting no later than early January, it seems almost impossible to squeeze in the Gavitt Games this year.

Keep in mind, that this is all speculation at this point since neither Michigan State nor the Gavitt Games have announced anything but it does make sense for the Spartans to skip the event this year. Their non-conference schedule was stripped down from normally 11 games to only seven because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and nearly all of those seven games are already filled up with high-level competition.

Here is the current schedule breakdown based on reports from the past few weeks:

  • Nov. 25 – 27: Orlando Invitational (three games; tournament field includes Gonzaga, Auburn, Xavier, Belmont, St. Louis, Boise State and eighth TBD team)
  • Dec. 1: Champions Classic vs. Duke
  • Dec. 8 or 9: ACC-Big Ten Challenge vs. TBD team
  • December – March: 20-game Big Ten conference schedule

This leaves the Spartans with two non-conference games left to add to the schedule. If teams are thinking more locally-based when finding opponents, donā€™t be surprised if the Spartans add the Oakland Grizzlies and one of the in-state Mid American Conference foes to round out the schedule.

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What we know about MSU Basketballā€™s 2020-21 Schedule

Thereā€™s been a flurry of reports over the past few weeks giving us the opportunity to piece together the Spartansā€™ 2020-21 schedule.

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In a normal year the Michigan State basketball schedule would have been finalized a few months ago and weā€™d already be able to play the win-loss prediction game as the season neared. However, as we all know by now 2020 has been far from a normal year so it is no surprise that we are less than two months out from the opening tip of the season and we still donā€™t know who, when or where exactly MSU will be hitting the hardwood this year.

The good news is thereā€™s been a flurry of reports over the past few weeks giving us the opportunity to piece together the Spartansā€™ 2020-21 slate as we await for the final schedule to be released from the school. A number of national media members and college basketball insiders have put out reports related to the Spartans in the past two weeks, making it easy to connect the dots on what Michigan Stateā€™s schedule will look like this season.

Hereā€™s what we know about the upcoming Michigan State basketball schedule — keeping in mind that these are reports from undisclosed sources,Ā  and that we are still awaiting the official schedule to be released from the program.

MSU will open season with Orlando Invitational

Thanks to Jon Rothstein, college basketball insider with CBS Sports, we now know the Spartans will start the 2020-21 season with the Orlando Invitational. Rothstein reported on Tuesday that the Orlando Invitational will take place from Nov. 25 – 27, and with Nov. 25 being the first official day games can take place this year, itā€™s now evident that the Spartans will open the campaign with this early-season tournament.

The other teams in the tournament currently include potential-preseason No.1 Gonzaga, Auburn, Xavier, Belmont, St. Louis and Boise State. The eighth team is still to be determined at this point.

We are still waiting to see how the bracket looks, but we at least know the Spartansā€™ first three games of the season will take place in the Orlando Invitational.

Spartans-Blue Devils renew rivalry to start December

Based on the rotation of teams, we knew entering this year that Michigan State would face off against Duke in the Champions Classic, but we werenā€™t sure exactly when and where. Jeff Goodman of Stadium confirmed earlier reports that the Champions Classic will be played on Dec. 1, and will also take place in the Orlando bubble.

This will be the fifth straight year the Spartans and Blue Devils will battle on the hardwood, with Duke winning three of the last four meetings — including last year at the Breslin Center.

ACC-Big Ten Challenge: We know when and potentially where, but not who

It was reported last week that the ACC-Big Ten Challenge would move forward as originally planned with games taking place on-campus on Dec. 8 and/or Dec. 9. Depending on how the rest of the schedule shakes out, this will most likely be the Spartansā€™ first game played outside of the Orlando bubble, and potentially the first true road game of the year for Michigan State. The Spartans hosted Duke last year in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge so expect them to be on the road this season.

With Duke already on the schedule, potential opponents for Michigan State in this year’s edition of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge includes North Carolina, Virginia, Louisville or Florida State. Andy Katz of NCAA.com believes the Spartans and Cavaliers would make for a great early-season match-up.

Rest of schedule still left to be determined

Based on all of these reports, five of the maximum seven non-conference games are accounted for meaning there are still two open spots. Michigan State is contracted to play in the Gavitt Games as well, which pits the Big Ten against the Big East, but reports indicate that the Spartans won’t participate in this year’s event. If the event is played, then the Spartans will have one remaining non-conference game left to add.

Expect the Big Ten to keep the same 20-game model as the past two seasons to round out the rest of the 2020-21 schedule. In previous years, Big Ten teams have played at least two games in the month of December but at this point there is no indication if that will continue this season or not.

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Seth Towns ranked as one of the top returning college basketball players according to Andy Katz

Basketball expert Andy Katz has named Ohio State basketball guard Seth Towns as one of the top returning players in college basketball.

For now, all eyes and attention have been on the hope and subsequent despair of a Big Ten football fall schedule for 2020 that’s been shelved, but beyond that, there is college basketball to think about.

There’s a lot of unknowns for the Ohio State basketball team heading into the 2021-2021 season, but there’s also reason to believe that the team is better than what many think and could surprise a lot of folks. One of those reasons is the arrival of graduate transfer Seth Towns.

Towns is a Columbus native who went to Harvard for his schooling (can’t blame him there), but now that he’s graduated, he’s ready to give it a run with his hometown university. And if you don’t know much about the 6-foot, 8-inch swingman, you will.

Towns has been rehabbing an injury over the better part of two seasons but is on schedule to be ready to go this winter. He was the Ivy League Player of the Year in 2017-2018 and brings a combination of length and shooting ability that can create matchup nightmares.

And the basketball world is taking notice.

Towns just landed on Andy Katz top returning college basketball players for the upcoming season, checking in at No. 12 overall.

“He will blend seamlessly in with Ohio State, the Columbus native coming back home,” said Katz on his March 365 podcast.

With Towns in the lineup along with proven scorer Justice Sueing becoming eligible this year, it’ll add some punch to returning players like Kyle Young, C.J. Walker, Duane Washington, and E.J. Liddell.

As long as the season can get off the ground, look for Ohio State hoops to make a move in 2020-2021.

 

Watch: Tom Izzo talks about the depth of the Big Ten on BTN

Today on Big Ten Network, Tom Izzo joined Andy Katz to talk about how talented and deep the Big Ten will be this season because of teams …

Friday afternoon on Big Ten Network, Tom Izzo joined Andy Katz to talk about how talented and deep the Big Ten will be this season because of teams like Wisconsin, Maryland, Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan State returning lots of experienced players.

Katz briefly mentioned Wisconsin because they will be returning all of their starters and most of their bench, with the notable exception of Brevin Pritzl, but much of the interview focused on how dominant the Big Ten could be this season. The talent of the Big Ten will definitely be fun to watch as March Madness approaches, and could lead to a very exciting Big Ten Tournament.

Andy Katz reacts to MSU Basketball’s NBA Withdrawal Deadline Decisions

NCAA.com’s Andy Katz reacts to MSU Basketball’s NBA withdrawal deadline decisions and how said decisions will impact the 2020-21 season.

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Xavier Tillman is officially heading towards the 2020 NBA Draft while Aaron Henry is officially returning to East Lansing for another year of college basketball. As a result, fans and analysts alike are speculating on the potential lineups for the Spartan’s 2020-21 season.

Andy Katz of NCAA.com took the time to weigh in on the NBA Draft deadline impact on Michigan State basketball’s 2020-21 season.

Check out this video below:

Simply put, Andy Katz thinks this team will be okay under HC Tom Izzo no matter the roster changes. He notes the Spartans are stacked on the perimeter but lacking some interior “meat” (his words not mine) without Xavier Tillman down low.

What do you think of Katz’s opinion? Weigh in with our poll below:

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