Another Big Week Ahead for Michigan State Basketball

Originally posted on Michigan State Spartans on SI
By Jacob Cotsonika | Last updated Nov 24, 2025 8:00 AM ET

It's nearly Thanksgiving, which means it's "Feast Week" in the college basketball calendar, where tons of mid-season tournaments and fun, non-conference matchups are plentiful. Michigan State will be spending it in Florida for the Fort Myers Tip-Off.

The Spartans, who are set to rise several spots from No. 17 in the AP Poll, will play two games in the event. MSU faces East Carolina on Tuesday (1 p.m. ET, FS2) and North Carolina on Thursday (4:30 p.m. ET, FOX).

On this episode of the Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast, let's break down the seasons the Pirates and the Tar Heels are having and the types of things we will probably learn this week.

Video of the entire episode can be viewed below.

Watch the MSU Spartans Insider Podcast here:

Additionally, a partial transcript from Tom Izzo's postgame press conference from this past Friday's victory over Detroit Mercy has been provided below.

Tom Izzo

IZZO: Disappointed, as you can imagine. I thought [Mark Montgomery] did a better job than I did. I thought his team was tougher.

I thought the change he made playing the two bigs was a really good move. I thought, looking at his team, lately they've been shooting a lot more threes and things, and they did a much better job of that in my humble opinion. I told him that.

Our four upperclassmen, I thought, played pretty well. We were 20-for-31. We were 5-for-11 from the three. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11-for-11 from the pre-throw line. We had pretty good rebounding. Jeremy had 11 assists. We only had five turnovers between them.

But our other guys struggled a little bit and both offensively and defensively, and that was disappointing coming off pretty good play out in New York [against Kentucky].

But that's where we are right now. We're still not consistent enough for me, but bounced back a little bit better. Outrebounded them by 11, I guess. Turnovers are 12, but they got a couple of turnovers for touchdowns, which I wasn't very happy about.

I just didn't think we played as good as we can play. So, we'll get better.

Q: Hey Tom, I'm curious to know, prior to Big Ten play and this non-conference time gives you all these different storylines. I mean, you get MSG, you get the Arkansas game at home, and of course, Monty. What is that like? And secondly, I just want to add another one. Second half, people talk about getting their cardio up so they can run longer. Do you think you need time for these guys to be able to have a mental bandwidth to last longer? So, I'll pose both of those for you.

IZZO: Yeah, you know, today's not an easy day for me. I don't like playing my former guys. I don't like playing Tum or Monty or BG or Mike Garland or Dwayne Stephens. I don't like playing any of them. Tom Crean over the years, that's not a lot of fun because I know what they're going through as they're trying to build programs.