Michigan State Basketball: Northeastern Preview

Game Info

Opponent: Northeastern

Location: Boston, MA

Time: 12:30pm EST

Channel: NBCSN

KenPom Line: MSU -7

MSU has a chance to tie its record for most wins to start the season (12-0) at Northeastern. Let's check out how Northeastern plays the shooty-hoops.

• 6'6" senior David Walker is #1 on the scouting report as he's scoring over 21 ppg on an excellent 133.7 ORtg. He's been great from everywhere shooting 48% from 3, 58% from 2, and 86% from the line on over 6 attempts per game.
• A couple intriguing guys are  6'8" senior Quincy Ford and 6'10" freshman Jeremy Miller who are both capable of shooting from outside at 39% and 53% respectively. Miller along with post players Kwesi Abakah and Anthony Green are all very foul prone with all of them having at least a 6.8 FC/40. Quincy Ford is their highest usage guy and he reminds me a bit of Ben Bentil from Providence who gave MSU a some trouble.
• TJ Williams is their point guard but his stats are pretty bad and remind me a bit of Tum Tum's from last year. Not a shooter or scorer, decent assist rate but bad turnover rate.
• They've seemed to embrace some of the analytics movement as they shoot a healthy amount of 3's (63rd in Off 3PA/FGA) while not giving up a lot of 3 point attempts (58th in Def 3PA/FGA). As a team they're shooting 39.4% from 3.
• They're not a good defensive team as they have the 273rd worst eFG% defense but they do a solid of job on the defensive glass (20th).

Four Factors

MSU on Offense

MSU on Defense

Things to watch

• Who guards David Walker? According to KenPom's lineup algorithm he's their 2-guard which would make sense for Bryn Forbes to guard him considering Walker weighs less than 200 pounds. However, his ability to get to the FT line might mean he's adept at using his body to create contact and draw fouls. This might be an issue for Harris or McQuaid who've both been pretty foul prone.
• Who's become's MSU's second offensive creator? I think I've had this bullet for just about every preview but it's because no one's stepped up and stayed there. Bess, Harris, McQuaid, and Nairn have showed flashes but they're all gone through slumps after that. Costello has quietly been really solid all year and he's shown the ability to take on a guy one-on-one in the post.

Bottom Line

Despite it being on the road MSU should be just fine in this one. Northeastern shoot 3's at a high clip which is always a little bit scary but their defense isn't great and MSU should be able to do what it wants on the offense end.

MSU 76 - Northeastern 66