NEW YORK – Shortly after his team lost a game and the No. 1 ranking to Kentucky on Tuesday night in the Champions Classic, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said Seton Hall might very well be the “best” team his Spartans face early in the college basketball season.
The two teams will meet Nov. 14 at Prudential Center, although the Spartans will no longer be ranked No. 1 when it happens. They became the fourth No. 1 team in the history of the Associated Press poll to lose the season-opener and the first since UConn in 1999-2000.
“I said at the beginning of the year, I thought Seton Hall might be the best team of the four, including us, just because they got eight out of nine [leading scorers] back,” Izzo said in a response to a question from NJ Advance Media. “They got a superstar guard [Myles Powell]. He’s a very good coach [Kevin Willard] and it’s a very tough place to play. So I haven’t changed any on Seton Hall.”
Just so we’re clear, those four teams Izzo was comparing to No. 12 Seton Hall?
“Michigan State, Duke, Kentucky and Kansas,” he said. “I mean, I really did, and I said that at the beginning of the year. They’re ranked 12th but early in the year they’re going to be ahead of us because eight out of nine” leading scorers are back.
Izzo’s comments echo what ESPN’s Jay Bilas said last week when he argued that Seton Hall could “beat anybody.”
On the same night Izzo and Michigan State lost to Kentucky in a sold-out Garden, Powell scored 27 points as Seton Hall blitzed Wagner, 105-71, in Walsh Gym.
Next up on Saturday the Pirates will host Stony Brook at Walsh. That game will mark the season debut for Willard, who sat out the regular-season opener as part of a suspension for allegations of transfer tampering.
Powell had hoped the Michigan State game would provide a test against the nation’s top-ranked team. During his four years at Seton Hall, Powell had never faced the No. 1 team in the land at home. The Pirates lost at No. 1 Villanova by 16 points on Feb. 4, 2018.
“To have the No. 1 team in the country coming into your house, there’s nothing like it,” Powell told NJ Advance Media during the preseason. “And that will be our first game at the Prudential Center, so I know our fans are going to give us a big welcome. I know as soon as they hear my name and me coming back, it’s going to be good. I can’t wait to get out there. I love our fans and I know they love us. “
The Pirates (1-0) have never hosted a No. 1 team in the non-conference, and now it won’t happen with the Spartans (0-1), either.
Still, Michigan State will be a tremendous early-season test for Willard’s club, and will be one of six games where tickets to the upper level of Prudential Center are sold.
“I think it’s a great opportunity, national TV against a Hall of Fame coach, Hall of Fame program,” Willard told NJ Advance Media. “It gives us a great chance early in the season to see where we’re at.”
And just as Izzo called Willard a “very good coach,” Willard has tremendous respect for Izzo, too. In fact, he almost worked for him once.
“I almost went and became a GA [graduate assistant] for him way back in the day," Willard said. "Instead, I went to Boston [Celtics]. I have so much respect for everything he does.”
The Michigan State-Seton Hall game will feature a matchup of senior All-America guards in Powell and Michigan State’s Cassius Winston, who had 21 points and four assists against Kentucky.
“Coach knows what he’s doing,” Powell said of the schedule. “If he didn’t believe in us and think that we’re ready, he wouldn’t set us up for failure. He put this schedule and he did what he did for a reason and I know we’re going to be ready. We have one of the best coaches in the country and we’re definitely going to be prepared.”
Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter who covers Seton Hall and NJ college basketball for NJ Advance Media.