Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State basketball adding big man transfer Szymon Zapala

1. MSU adding big man Szymon Zapala is revealing of Izzo’s thinking

If there was any doubt where Tom Izzo stood on his evaluation of his own big men and/or his willingness to potentially rock the boat by taking a swing at landing a high-profile and expensive center in the transfer portal, he answered it definitively with the addition of 7-footer Szymon Zapala, who committed to the Spartans on Tuesday.

Zapala, who played last season at low-major Longwood University in Virginia after spending three seasons at Utah State, will give Michigan State needed depth and insurance and some extra size on the interior. He will not replace juniors Jaxon Kohler or Carson Cooper. Nor will he cost MSU’s Spartan Nation NIL collective more than the team’s most high-profile players in salary.

And that was the point of using MSU’s final available scholarship on Zapala. He fills one need — the Spartans would have been risking disaster to begin the season with Cooper, Kohler and sophomore Xavier Booker as their only experienced frontcourt players taller than 6-5. They’d be one injury away from a real problem. MSU’s other remaining need, however — a viable Big Ten-caliber center who can hold up against the nation’s top big men — is being left to Cooper and Kohler.

That’s a sizable risk, given that those two as sophomores weren’t ready for that level, albeit Kohler’s season was ruined from the start by a foot injury.

Izzo isn’t leaning heavily into his returning big men to spite MSU fans. I’m sure he thinks this is best for his roster as a whole, for his own curiosity about what Kohler can become, and for his program culture and, thus, winning. If he’s wrong, he may lose the faith of part of the Spartan fan base which has been screaming from Breslin Center and beyond to upgrade the center position for a couple years.

Pre-2020, Izzo and those staffs had success developing several centers who were ready for the challenge when it was time — notably Xavier Tillman and Matt…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/couch-3-quick-takes-michigan-205049353.html

Author : Lansing State Journal

Publish date : 2024-05-14 20:50:49

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