Tag: Jeff Goodman

Spartans listed in top 5 of Jeff Goodman’s preseason 2023-24 college basketball rankings

Jeff Goodman of Stadium is extremely high on the Spartans entering next year

Jeff Goodman of Stadium is extremely high on the Spartans entering next season.

Michigan State will enter next season listed in the preseason top 25 polls, but where do the experts see the Spartans exactly landing? Goodman has the Spartans near the top at No. 3. He has Michigan State behind only No. 1 Marquette and No. 2 Duke.

Here’s what Goodman had to say about Michigan State:

“Tom Izzo and the Spartans could be loaded if Tyson Walker and Malik Hall opt to return for another year. Izzo brings back AJ Hoggard, Jaden Akins, Jaxon Kohler and Mady Sissoko, and a talented freshman class led by skilled forward Xavier Booker and point guard Jeremy Fears.”

Michigan State is one of only three Big Ten teams listed in Goodman’s preseason rankings. The other two are Purdue (No. 5) and Maryland (No. 21).

Check out the rankings from Goodman below:

Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan state news, notes, and opinion. You can also follow Robert Bondy on Twitter @RobertBondy5.

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Alabama Morning Drive: Alabama baseball releases 2023 schedule

The latest news and notes involving the Alabama Crimson Tide on Monday, Jan. 9.

Good morning and welcome back to Alabama Morning Drive. If you are new here, Alabama Morning Drive is a series we do throughout the football offseason to catch you up on the latest news and notes involving the Alabama Crimson Tide.

To get things started this morning we will take a look at coach Brad Bohannon’s and the Alabama baseball team’s 2023 schedule.

Coach Bohannon is entering his sixth season as the head coach of the Crimson Tide and has shown strides of improvement throughout his tenure in Tuscaloosa.

The season will get underway in just a little over a month and below is the complete 2023 schedule for the Crimson Tide.

Here are a few other stories Tide fans should know about on this Monday morning.

Texas basketball jumps up to No. 2 in Jeff Goodman’s updated top 25

After landing Carr, Chris Beard’s squad is now viewed as one of the top teams in the country.

After Texas landed Marcus Carr, who averaged 19 points and four assists while at Minnesota, Chris Beard and the Longhorns made a move towards the top spot in Stadium’s Jeff Goodman’s newest preseason rankings.

Goodman now has Texas slated in the No. 2 spot in the country right below the Gonzaga Bulldogs, who signed the second ranked class in the nation according to 247Sports, headlined by Fiba U19 MVP Chet Holgren.

The Longhorns will have a total of seven players who averaged double digit points in 2020, and are now poised to contend at the highest level.

The thing that sets this team apart compared to the Shaka Smart era is the fact that there as an elite amount of depth. At times during the tournament with Texas Tech, Beard utilized a nine player rotation. Not only is that an option, but if he wanted to, Beard could use up to an 11 player rotation, as the Longhorns have arguably the deepest team in college basketball.

The preseason rankings are nice and all, but now that the roster is full, building chemistry is the most important thing. Otherwise, this squad will just be a team with a bunch of great individual players that could not accomplish anything.

Texas Basketball: Jeff Goodman puts Longhorns in his preseason top 10

Jeff Goodman of Stadium has put UT as high as No. 10 in his way-too-early top 25. Only the defending champs Baylor Bears are ranked higher.

When Shaka Smart decided to move on from Texas and head north to Marquette, a rebuild seemed to be ahead of the program. Chris Beard put all of that talk to bed the minute he was hired.

Four elite level transfers have made Austin their destination since Beard’s hiring on April 1. On top of that, a four-star guard/forward switched over from Texas Tech to Texas, while three of Smart’s Big 12 championship players are returning as well.

With all of the talent acquisition and returning talent, there will be no rebuild this season. Because of that, Texas has begun to shoot up preseason ranking boards.

Jeff Goodman of Stadium has put the Longhorns as high as No. 10 in his way-too-early top 25. Only the defending national champions Baylor Bears are ranked higher.

Here is Goodman’s reasoning behind putting Texas in the top 10:

I’m betting on Chris Beard and his staff. He still has to add more pieces to the roster, but he’s already brought on four impact transfers and will bring back Jones and Ramey. They’ll be more.

Texas has the opportunity to continue to build preseason hype with the potential of Greg Brown and Jericho Sims to return. Both project as first-round picks in the upcoming NBA draft. May 30 is the deadline to declare.

Beard and his staff have been preaching “Monday night” in front of the media. The goal has been clearly set at not only making the Final Four, but the national championship.

Preseason hype is fun for now but when Beard a company get on the court this fall, living up to it will be a different challenge.

What we know about MSU Basketball’s 2020-21 Schedule

There’s been a flurry of reports over the past few weeks giving us the opportunity to piece together the Spartans’ 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 we’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 don’t know who, when or where exactly MSU will be hitting the hardwood this year.

The good news is there’s been a flurry of reports over the past few weeks giving us the opportunity to piece together the Spartans’ 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 State’s schedule will look like this season.

Here’s what we know about the upcoming Michigan State basketball schedule — keeping in mind that these are reports from undisclosed sources,  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, it’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 Spartans’ 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 weren’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 Spartans’ 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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Michigan State Basketball at No. 6 in Jeff Goodman’s Preseason Top 50 for 2020-21 season

Michigan State basketball ranks No. 6 in the updated Top 50 Preseason list from Stadium Basketball Insider Jeff Goodman.

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Jeff Goodman’s updated Preseason Top 50 rankings for the 2020-21 college basketball season ranks Michigan State basketball at No. 6. Note, this list is based on speculative information on NCAA players declared for the draft. In this update, Goodman says he expects Henry to return but says Xavier Tillman’s Draft probability is a “flip of the coin”.

You can check out his entire Top 50 list here.

There are only two other Big Ten teams ahead of MSU in these rankings: The Iowa Hawkeyes and the Wisconsin Badgers. Goodman says he expects Luka Garza to return in his rankings though. I’m not quite sure if I agree on that front.

We will see how this list changes as more information is available on the draft status of Xavier Tillman and Aaron Henry.

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