EAST LANSING — For the second time in a week, Xavier Booker is heading home.
For the second time in a week, Michigan State basketball’s big men face a daunting duty in the paint.
Only the challenge that Indiana’s post presence presents is more wide-reaching than what Zach Edey provides Purdue.
“(The Hoosiers) kind of runs their team through the bigs a lot,” Booker said after practice Friday. “So definitely, it’s gonna be a challenge for us. But I think we got it. We just gotta trust our game plan and start working from there.”
MSU has plenty of things to improve on heading into the postseason, including getting better shooting and scoring from their star guards. But finding consistent post play — as has been a struggle all year — remains a need at both ends of the court for the Spartans (18-12, 10-9 Big Ten) as they travel to Indiana (17-13, 9-10) to wrap up the regular season on Sunday.
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Coach Tom Izzo said he was planning to work three different centers with the first team between Thursday and Saturday’s practices to prepare for a Hoosiers squad that goes big on the interior with 7-foot senior center Kel’el Ware, along with 6-9 sophomore Malik Reneau and 6-8 freshman Mackenzie Mgbako at forward.
“A completely different team than some of the ones we’ve played,” Izzo said after practice Friday. “They’re predominantly an inside-oriented team. We just got done with prominent a guard-oriented team (Northwestern). … It’s really been a lot of different things that we’ve had to prepare for. And here’s another team that we play for the first time in the last game of the year.”
Add in 6-8 reserve Anthony Walker, and that Indiana frontcourt quartet combines to average 48.9 of Indiana’s 73.1 points and 22.1 of the team’s 34.6 rebounds along with contributing 6.2 assists per game.
“Definitely just trying to keep the ball out the post as best as we can,” Booker said of the Spartans’ mission. “Obviously, it’s not gonna go that way every single time. But when they do get it in, just play solid defense.”
The Spartans gave up 32 points and 11 rebounds to Edey in last Saturday’s 80-74 loss at No. 3 Purdue, limiting the 7-4, 300-pound senior to 9-for-15 shooting but sending him to the line 20 times, where he hit 14.
In Wednesday’s 53-49 home win over the Wildcats, MSU benefitted from Northwestern big man Matthew Nicholson being out and dominated with a 46-35 rebounding advantage. The Spartans’ 19 offensive boards were their most in three years. Senior Malik Hall had 15 points with a career-best 17 rebounds, including seven off his teammates’ misses, as MSU shot a season-worst 31.7% and went 2-for-17 from 3-point range.
Beyond Hall, though, the combination of 6-9 senior Mady Sissoko, 6-11 sophomore Carson Cooper, 6-9 sophomore Jaxon Kohler and 6-11 freshman Booker has struggled offensively. Those four have averaged 10.6 points and 11.4 rebounds between them and have committed 40 of the Spartans’ 166 turnovers in 19 Big Ten games this season.
“I mean, we’re just trying to give guys a chance and challenge them in who can play the hardest,” Izzo said. “Who’s gonna want to do the most things? … Some of it is hard on them and on me. Do you go with a guy? Well, you gotta earn the right to go to him.”
Izzo called Hall “our steadiest player.” The 6-8 fifth-year senior is averaging 14.8 points and a team-leading 6.3 rebounds in Big Ten play. Over the past month, Hall continues to turn it up another notch, averaging 18.1 points and 8.1 rebounds in his last seven games.
“We had a four-man who we thought could be good, but we questioned him (coming into the season),” Izzo said of Hall. “The four-man is playing his tail off in every way — rebounding, offense defense, making free throws, getting to the free-throw line a lot more. … The only problem Malik has is he doesn’t (attack rebounds) every time, especially on the offensive boards. Will (Wednesday) light a light under his keister? Maybe, because he saw the success he can have.”
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Hall’s uptick has helped offset some of the struggles of the centers. Booker’s emergence, along with Kohler’s improving stamina since his January return from injury, also gives Izzo options he’s weighing based on matchups.
Over MSU’s first 15 Big Ten games, Booker was averaging 2.5 points in just 5.8 minutes in 10 appearances, primarily in garbage time. Over the last three, the Indianapolis native is playing 13 minutes a night and contributing 6.0 points, 1.3 rebounds and 1.3 blocks. He started his first career game against Ohio State and played 17 minutes, hit a pair of 3-pointers over Edey to finish with 11 points in 12 minutes at Purdue before going scoreless in 10 minutes Wednesday.
“I try not to overthink things,” Booker said. “Obviously, at times there is, but I try to just stay calm, just trying to talk myself. I feel like that’s really helped me out through this process as well, just trying to talk myself through whatever I’m seeing on the floor, kind of talking myself through it, trusting myself that I’ll make the right read.”
Now, with the postseason on the horizon, it is up to Izzo to make the right reads in rotating his big men the rest of the way.
“These guys gotta prove who wants the job,” he said. “It’s hard on them, but it’s hard on us. It’s hard on me.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball’s center spot back in spotlight at Indiana
