Michigan State basketball vs. Louisiana-Monroe tipoff: Preview, prediction
•What: Michigan State vs. Louisiana-Monroe
•When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
•Where: Breslin Center, East Lansing
•TV/Radio: BTN-Plus (online only)/Spartan Sports Network radio, including WJIM 1240-AM and WMMQ 94.9-FM
•Records/Rankings: MSU is 1-1 and ranked No. 11 by The Associated Press. Louisiana-Monroe is 2-1 and unranked.
•Coaches: MSU — Tom Izzo is 575-226 in his 24th season, all with the Spartans. Louisiana-Monroe — Keith Richard is 245-275 in his 18th season, including 95-158 in his ninth year with the Warhawks.
•Series: MSU leads 2-0 all-time, with the schools most recently meeting 11 years ago and, before that, in 1998, when Louisiana-Monroe was known as Northeast Louisiana.
Louisiana-Monroe
Pos. | Name | PPG |
F (10) | Tyree White (6-7) | 6.0 |
F (1) | Travis Munnings (6-6) | 14.5 |
G (3) | JD Williams (6-4) | 8.0 |
G (53) | Jontray Harris (6-4) | 11.0 |
G (2) | Michael Ertel (6-2) | 14.0 |
MSU
Pos. | Name | PPG |
C (44) | Nick Ward (6-9) | 17.0 |
F (25) | Kenny Goins (6-7) | 11.5 |
G (20) | Matt McQuaid (6-5) | 12.0 |
G (1) | Joshua Langford (6-5) | 18.0 |
G (5) | Cassius Winston (6-0) | 13.5 |
•Louisiana-Monroe update: The Warhawks are coming off a competitive 65-55 loss at Texas on Monday night. They played that game without their leading scorer, sharpshooting guard Daishon Smith, a Wichita State transfer, who was out with a hamstring injury. His status for Tuesday night is unclear. He made 6 of 8 3-pointers and averaged 17 points in Louisiana-Monroe’s first two games, wins at Jacksonville State and against Millsaps College. Even without Smith, the Warhawks put up a fight against the Longhorns on Monday, trailing just 30-29 at the half. Guards Michael Ertel and Travis Munnings did the bulk of the scoring, with 16 and 15 points respectively. This is not a big ULM team. They don’t start a player taller than 6-foot-7, though 6-8 junior forward Andre Washington gives the Warhawks some ruggedness and size off the bench. He led the team with 10 rebounds at Texas.
•MSU update: The Spartans are coming off their first win of the season, a 106-82 home victory over Florida Gulf Coast on Sunday night. Joshua Langford’s big second half against Kansas last week carried over to Sunday at Breslin, with another 18-point performance. Nick Ward, who was limited by Kansas’ size and attention, put up 25 points in 23 minutes and drew 11 fouls against FGCU. The Spartans get one more tune-up after this, Sunday against Tennessee Tech, before playing UCLA on Thanksgiving night in Las Vegas.
•Prediction: Louisiana-Monroe is a bona fide mid-major program, one that’s played in the postseason three of the last four years. We’ll see if this ULM team has the legs to keep pace on a quick turnaround, perhaps again without its top scorer. The Warhawks stayed with Texas with defense and by way of Texas’ poor shooting.
» Make it: MSU 76, Louisiana-Monroe 61
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- Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State's 106-82 win over Florida Gulf Coast
- MSU football and basketball made-up mailbag: Are folks being too hard on Mark Dantonio
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.