Big Ten Opener Vs. Northwestern, Injury Report, and Keon Coleman

December 2, 2022: Michigan State prepares for its Big Ten opener against the Northwestern Wildcats at the Breslin Center Sunday night. After going 5-3 in the extremely difficult early non-conference stretch versus high level competition (and down two of their best players) MSU will attempt to begin its assault on another Big Ten title for Tom Izzo. The Wildcats come in struggling on offense ranked #174 in KenPom but survive on the defensive side of the ball by mucking things up. They rank first in 2-point defense and #25 overall with a strategy of clearly keeping games low scoring. MSU will try to move the ball in transition and crash the offensive boards. This also might be one of the rare games where they have a turnover advantage over another team (when is the last season we said that?) Expectations are that Jaden Akins will suit up and play some minutes while Malik Hall rests his foot for another week or two. Of some interest is the probable addition of Keon Coleman to the team once again and discussion that he might play a bigger role than we anticipated. This is somewhat helped by the injuries and the fact that he will have about an extra month with the team this season since the football team didn't make a bowl game. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.