Michigan State men’s and women’s basketball Media Days participants unveiled, MSU picked fourth in Big Ten preseason poll

With the start of the regular season just under one month away, the Big Ten Conference is set to hold Big Ten Basketball Media Days over the next two days in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This year will be the first time that Minneapolis will play host to the event with the men’s and women’s teams combined in the same days. Minneapolis was also announced as the host for the 2023 Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament and the 2024 Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament.

With the Michigan State Spartans set to participate on Wednesday, the programs unveiled the participants on Monday.

Representing the men’s team alongside head coach Tom Izzo will be sophomore guard Jaden Akins, senior forward Malik Hall, graduate forward Joey Hauser, junior guard A.J. Hoggard, and senior guard Tyson Walker.

Alongside head coach Suzy Merchant for the women’s team will be sophomore shooting guard/small forward Matilda Ekh, sophomore point guard DeeDee Hagemann, graduate guard Kamaria McDaniel, and senior forward Taiyier Parks.

Michigan State’s head coaches will be up second on Wednesday, immediately following Michigan. Merchant will speak first from 11:10 a.m. to 11:20 a.m. with Izzo following from 11:20 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. All times are Eastern, though the official schedule is in Central due to host location.

After Michigan State, Penn State will wrap up the coach press conferences. MSU follows Nebraska, Ohio State, Minnesota, and Michigan, respectively.

Tuesday will feature opening remarks from Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren with Maryland, Indiana, Rutgers, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, and Iowa following. All programs will see the women’s basketball coach speak first with the men’s coach to follow. All of the two-day event will also be broadcast live on the Big Ten Network.

The full schedule can be found here.

Michigan State men’s basketball picked to finish fourth in Big Ten Conference

In other basketball news, The Athletic and Columbus Dispatch unveiled the results of a joint 2022 Big Ten men’s basketball preseason poll from various beat writers.

Michigan State was picked to finish fourth in the conference. Indiana was picked to win the Big Ten. The preseason All-Big Ten honors were released last week with Malik Hall being the only Spartan selected.

Full results for the “official unofficial preseason Big Ten media poll” are below:

(first-place votes in parenthesis)

1. Indiana, 43 (19)
2. Illinois, 81 (6)
3. Michigan, 92 (1)
4. Michigan State, 139
5. Purdue, 141 (1)
6. Ohio State, 167
7. Iowa, 185 (1)
8. Rutgers, 218
9. Wisconsin, 229
10. Maryland, 267
11. Penn State, 304
12. Minnesota, 334
13. Northwestern, 362
14. Nebraska, 378