EAST LANSING — Tom Izzo still doesn’t know what to make of the Big Ten this season.

After a wild couple of days, it appears as open as ever. as does the opportunity for Michigan State basketball to repeat as regular-season champion.

“I said in the middle of December, we’d know something. We kind of did. In the middle of January, do we know much more?” the Spartans coach said after practice Sunday, Jan 11. “You see so many teams getting beat and not getting beat. I think parity is at an all-time [high].”

Only two unbeatens remain in Big Ten play, with the 12th-ranked Spartans (14-2, 4-1) among three teams with one loss. To maintain pace in the competitive conference race requires continuing to win at home as MSU hosts Indiana (12-4, 3-2) on Tuesday (7 p.m., Peacock).

Here’s what to watch for in the first of two meetings between the Spartans and new-look Hoosiers.

A reputation for Jeremy Fears Jr.

There was a definitive pivot point in MSU’s 76-66 victory over Northwestern on Thursday, as the slow start was followed by a focused finish from Jeremy Fears Jr.

The third-year sophomore point guard got into early foul trouble with two blocking calls going against him and sat for nearly nine minutes of his scoreless first half.

“The thing is, you gotta be smart about how you do it,” he said. “You still kind of gotta play with that aggressive mindset, but also just be a little more smart at the same time, which is hard. That’s why you know usually if you get one, anything can happen.”

Nearing the midway point of the second half, Fears was knocked to the ground with no call in front of the his bench. Izzo was whistled for a technical foul with 13:49 to play and the Spartans trailing by seven after a four-point possession for the Wildcats.

“It’s hard with Jeremy because he falls a lot,” Northwestern coach Chris Collins said. “Some of them are fouls, and some aren’t. He’s good at it – I mean that in a good way – so at times, he can be tough to officiate because he’s really good at selling stuff.”

After a brief stint on the bench with Izzo, Fears took control. He scored 13 of his 15 points in the final 10:27, including nine during a nine-minute, 24-7 takeover in the aftermath of Izzo’s technical.

Fears also hit three free throws after getting fouled on a 3-point attempt after the Wildcats had cut it back to a three-point deficit during that stretch. That was the moment Chris Collins said he’d rather have back, preferring to let Fears – who is 4-for-25 beyond the arc over his past nine games – take the shot.

“He’s a vet point guard,” Collins said. “I’ve been watching him play ever since he was a young guy, growing up in Chicago. He just stayed on the bench when he got those two early fouls and he had to go sit. That’s what a veteran stud point guard does – he comes back in the game, he steadies the ship. And then he made a lot of huge plays down the stretch.

“The kid’s a winner, I got nothing but respect for him.”

Jaxon Kohler grows

If he had enough makes, Jaxon Kohler would rank among the nation’s best 3-point shooters.

Not that the senior’s 53.3% shooting from deep isn’t already impressive. After entering the season a career 33.9% shooter in 56 attempts behind the arc, the 6-foot-9 Kohler is showing off his improved shot by making 32 of 60 through the first 16 games. That included an 11-for-15 run in his past three games.

Equally as impressive are Kohler’s 14.2 points and 10.1 rebounds, both team highs. The Spartans haven’t had a player average a double-double over a full season since Xavier Tillman did it in 2019-20 with 13.7 points and 10.3 rebounds a game. The only other player to achieve that under Izzo was Draymond Green in 2011-12 (16.2 points/10.6 rebounds).

Indiana update

It’s a new-look Hoosiers squad under first-year coach Darian DeVries, who arrived from West Virginia and brought along 13 new faces.

Indiana lost every scholarship player from a year ago to the portal or graduation, with only two walk-ons back from former coach Mike Woodson’s final roster. Among the players DeVries added included his son Tucker, a 6-7 forward averaging 14.9 points and 5.1 rebounds. Joining him is 6-6 swingman Lamar Wilkerson, a Sam Houston State transfer who’s averaging 20.3 points a game overall and a league-leading 27.4 in Big Ten play.  Two others Hoosiers are scoring in double figures: 6-3 guard Tayton Conerway (12.3 points and 4.3 assists) and 6-10 reserve forward Reed Bailey (10.4 points and 4.5 rebounds).

All five IU starters average at least 3.3 rebounds a game and four average 2.8 assists or better.

“They’ve got a lot of guys that can score the ball,” Izzo said. “They shoot a lot of 3s. They seem to be very balanced offensively and defensively. Very well-coached. It’s a good team.”

The Hoosiers are 55th in scoring offense (84.5 points per game) and tied for 55th in scoring defense (68) while also ranking 55th in field goal percentage (48.3%). Indiana averages 36.8 rebounds a game but just 9.7 on the offensive glass, which is tied for 298th in Division I.

Izzo has never coached against DeVries, a 50-year-old who is 181-72 in eight seasons as a head coach, including six years at Drake and a one-year stopover at West Virginia last season.  

“It’s a little more prep for us, because we know nothing about them,” Izzo said, adding that the same holds for DeVries and his staff in preparing for MSU.

Michigan State basketball vs Indiana prediction

After a settling-in and feeling-out start, the Spartans begin to increase the tempo to assert its pace on a Hoosiers team that does not get out well in transition. That leads to big games for Fears and Coen Carr as MSU closes out a perfect three-game homestand before hitting the road for three of its next four. The pick: MSU 81, Indiana 74.

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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DULUTH — The University of Minnesota Duluth received a visit from University President Rebecca Cunningham last week, just days before the start of the spring semester.

Cunningham’s Northland visit included meetings with several local legislators, as well as stops at some of the system’s regional facilities.

The trip was capped off with a forum hosted at UMD on Friday. Cunningham and UMD Chancellor Charles T. Nies met with college community members and discussed the university’s new strategic roadmap, outlining upcoming initiatives and opportunities at UMD and across the university system.

“We have these five wonderful campuses that serve different students with different interests in different study and learning environments,” said Cunningham in a sit down with the News Tribune, “and we’re working together in really just new and exciting ways.”

Back in October, the university unveiled its new strategic plan, Elevating Extraordinary 2030, which outlines its goals and mission over the next five years. Building on the last strategic plan, which concluded in 2025, the university’s next phase will be guided by five main areas of focus: preparing and engaging students, innovative learning, serving communities, advancing research and investing in the local workforce.

“The strategic roadmap … really gives us the framework and the structure to say we’re doing this, not only because we know it’s good for our students,” said Nies, who co-chaired the development committee for the new plan, “but it’s also helping to advance the mission and the programming for the University of Minnesota, across all campuses.”

How each of the five main university campuses puts the elements of the strategic plan into action will likely look a little different at each school, Nies said, but having a set of system-wide goals will also create more opportunities for campus partnerships and shared resources.

One of the overall facets of the strategic plan focuses on serving the community through the development of health care and health research, which has led to “exciting” investments in the university’s medical programs, Cunningham said.

Earlier this year, the UMN’s Medical School Duluth Campus expanded to a four-year program, opening new opportunities for students looking to focus their education in areas such as rural health, family medicine and Native American health.

The UMN School of Dentistry, which trains more than 70% of Minnesota’s practicing dentists, is also planned to undergo changes, Cunningham, said as the university looks to restructure and renovate the school.

However, the university’s top priority right now is reaching an agreement on continued funding and support for the state’s largest medical school.

In November, the University of Minnesota rejected a proposed deal between Fairview Health Services and University of Minnesota Physicians, the clinical practice for the school’s faculty. While the $1 billion deal would have provided funding and support to the medical school for the next 10 years, the university objected to the proposal, claiming a lack of involvement in negotiations and that the university’s control over the medical school would be greatly reduced under the new plan.

Contributed / University of Minnesota Duluth

All parties have since returned to the negotiating table, with the help of a Minnesota Attorney General-appointed mediator.

“We’re in mediation right now, and I expect that we’ll come to a solution that works for all three parties here,” Cunningham said. “The university remains very committed to rural health care, and once that gets sorted, we can continue to look to other plans and phases. … There’s lots of opportunities for next conversations and next partnerships, but my first job of business is to sort out our partnership with Fairview.”

Among those “next conversations” are discussions about the proposed medical center in downtown Duluth, a project that has been under discussion since 2022.

The idea to expand current health care services and training options in Duluth through a new academic health center has received

continued support

from the city since it was first proposed. While Essentia Health and Aspirus St. Luke’s have

offered locations

for the potential medical school campus, Cunningham says the plan still requires some more thought.

“The university is still interested in exploring that opportunity, and it remains in our five-year plan that we worked with the regents on last June,” Cunningham added. “We plan to continue to explore the opportunities … for what the right opportunity is for medical education here, and how we could expand that.”

Expanding medical education efforts go hand in hand with local initiatives, like

the Duluth Promise,

Nies said. Focused on creating career pathways in fields with high workforce demands, Duluth Promise is a coalition of local schools and industry groups, including UMD, Duluth Public Schools and the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce.

The initiative launched last year and has since narrowed its focus to health care careers.

“It fits in rather nicely with some of the overall focuses of our strategic plan,” Nies said. “We’re creating a pathway from kindergarten to med school right here in Duluth. … We’ve got a lot of strong partnerships here, and we’re going to really lean into that strength as we move forward. There’s a lot of great things ahead.”

Auburn Tigers (10-6, 1-2 SEC) at Missouri Tigers (12-4, 2-1 SEC)

Columbia, Missouri; Wednesday, 7 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: Auburn faces Missouri after Keyshawn Hall scored 30 points in Auburn’s 95-73 win against the Arkansas Razorbacks.

The Missouri Tigers are 10-0 in home games. Missouri is 1-0 in games decided by less than 4 points.

The Auburn Tigers have gone 1-2 against SEC opponents. Auburn is 0-2 in games decided by less than 4 points.

Missouri’s average of 7.7 made 3-pointers per game this season is only 0.9 fewer made shots on average than the 8.6 per game Auburn gives up. Auburn averages 8.6 made 3-pointers per game this season, 0.9 fewer makes per game than Missouri allows.

The Missouri Tigers and Auburn Tigers square off Wednesday for the first time in conference play this season.

TOP PERFORMERS: Anthony Robinson II is averaging 11 points, 4.1 assists and 2.2 steals for the Missouri Tigers. Mark Mitchell is averaging 16.6 points over the last 10 games.

Hall is shooting 50.3% and averaging 21.5 points for the Auburn Tigers. Tahaad Pettiford is averaging 2.3 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.

LAST 10 GAMES: Missouri Tigers: 6-4, averaging 74.8 points, 30.0 rebounds, 15.0 assists, 6.9 steals and 3.8 blocks per game while shooting 47.5% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 72.7 points per game.

Auburn Tigers: 5-5, averaging 84.9 points, 34.0 rebounds, 13.4 assists, 6.7 steals and 4.6 blocks per game while shooting 46.5% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 84.4 points.

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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.