Tom Izzo shares importance of his team's veteran experience

Michigan State is going to have its hands full this afternoon against USC in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. With that said, Tom Izzo is hoping the Spartan’s experience can be something that gives them an upper hand.

Izzo spoke about the veteran advantage that his team has and how it could help them in March. While every team has a new ‘leader’, he says this group has a collection of leaders and it only gets bolstered by the fact that they’ve all been leading one another for some time now.

“I think that always helps. Experience helps in everything but coaching,” said Izzo. “We have trouble selling our experience to people. But I think when a player has experience and he’s been in the tournament? It definitely helps. But, again, every team has a new leader. We’re a different team this year than we were last year.”

“The A.J.s and the Tysons and Joey Hausers and Malik Halls and Jaden Akins made a big jump this year. That’s got to help you some,” Izzo said. “And our team’s been pretty much together. We don’t have a bunch of different guys we’ve brought in. It’s pretty much a homegrown team. And that can be advantageous somewhere down the line. We’ll see if it is.”

Per KenPom, Michigan State is within the Top-150 when it comes to D-1 experience with an average of 2.12 years.

However, the age on the roster is front-loaded where it matters most which is with their main contributors. Tyson Walker, Joey Hauser, and Malik Hall are all seniors who play anywhere from 25-35 minutes per game. After that, AJ Hoggard and Mady Sissoko are juniors playing 20-30 minutes a game. In total, those five players have accounted for 79% of the Spartan’s scoring along with plenty more of their production.

As far as cores go, Izzo has one that’s experienced enough as well as good enough to make some noise starting today against the Trojans. Even so, he doesn’t want that to overstate his confidence even though he believes they do have the pieces to make something happen.

“When I say I feel confident? If you think I sleep at night, you’re crazy. I’m not that confident,” Izzo said. “We just like the ingredients we have. It’s just whether we can put it together for 40 minutes.”