" title="Spartans Weblog">Spartans Weblog

One of the standard lines in season previews of this year’s Michigan State basketball team is that, in the wake of Drew Neitzel’s graduation, Raymar Morgan has to step up as MSU’s go-to scorer.  And that’s a reasonable statement.  Morgan is an extremely talented player who (1) goes into just about every college basketball game [...]

Here are the depth ratios for the 11 Big Ten teams during this past conference season:

Purdue
2.28

Penn St.
2.34

Minnesota
2.57

Michigan
2.63

Michigan St.
2.90

Illinois
3.03

Northwestern
3.32

Indiana
5.43

Wisconsin
6.53

Ohio St.
8.53

Iowa
11.35

This would further illustrate that, while depth appears to be a preqrequisite to success for Izzo-led teams, that’s not necessarily true for all college basketball teams. Of the four NCAA Tournament teams from top four teams [...]

In my post looking back at the MSU basketball roster over the last 13 years, I asserted that depth is a key component for a Tom Izzo-coached team to be successful. This is, of course, not an original conclusion. The Artist Formerly Known as the Big Ten Wonk (TAFKATBTW) in a November 2006 [...]