" title="Spartans Weblog">Spartans Weblog

There was a little discussion in the comments section of the last post as to whether Neitzel belongs up there on the new banner with Magic, Skiles, Smith, Respert, and Cleaves. The first five guys are no brainers:

• Magic Johnson was the driving force behind MSU’s first national title. Despite playing only two years at MSU, he ranks 6th on MSU’s all-time career assist list. And he’s unquestionably one of the top ten players in the history of the game of basketball.
• Shawn Respert, Steve Smith, and Scott Skiles are the three leading career scorers in MSU history (in that order). All of them were the unquestioned stars of MSU teams that achieved a decent amount of team success. (Two NCAA appearances for Skiles, two NCAA appearances plus a conference title for Smith, three NCAA appearances for Respert.)
• Mateen Cleaves was the leader on three Big Ten championship teams, two Final Four teams, and MSU’s second national championship team. He ranks first all-time in career assists at MSU.

The thinking in including Neitzel was (1) I wanted to stick with guards, since MSU has a long history of great guards, (2) I wanted a player from the post-2001 era, (3) he’s my favorite Spartan, and (4) he was the key player in terms of keeping the current NCAA Tournament appearance streak alive.

Admittedly, he’s a little more of a stretch than the other five. I was a little surprised, though, when I took a closer look at his final career numbers. They stack up pretty well:

• 14th on the all-time MSU scoring list (within 60 points of Peterson, Ager, Cleaves, and Hill).
• 4th on the all-time MSU assist list (within 70 of #2 Scott Skiles, despite not playing point guard for the majority of his career).
• 10th on the all-time Big Ten assist list (meaning four of the top ten all-time Big Ten assist leaders are Spartans).
• 3rd in all-time MSU 3-point field goals made (behind Respert and Hill).
• 1st in all-time MSU free throw percentage.

So there you go. Only this blogger could perform such an in-depth analysis of his own blog banner, eh?

On a related note, Steve Grinczel reports that MSU’s trio of all-time leading scorers could help Neitzel achieve his goal of playing in the NBA:

“Neitzel works so hard on his game and he already shoots better than 80-90 percent of the guys in the league,” Respert said. “And he’s demonstrated his ability to be a playmaker. When teams see that, their interest will grow. And with guys like me and Steve (Smith), Coach Izzo and Scott (Milwaukee Bucks coach and former Spartan Scott Skiles) advocating for him, he’ll get his chance.”

Back to the present: I’m a bit late on this, but all of MSU’s healthy players (Roe and Lucious are both on the mend from injuries) are participating in the Moneyball Pro-Am summer league here in Lansing. Games are played on the weekends at Everett High School, starting two Saturdays ago and going through August 10. Former Spartans Thomas Kelley and Drew Naymick are also participating.

I’ve been vaguely aware of these summer league games in the past, but have never attended. Have any readers gone so far this year or in past years? Is this worthwhile viewing for MSU basketball junkies?

Tags: drew neitzel, magic johnson, mateen cleaves, msu basketball history, scott skiles, shawn respert, steve smith

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