Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State basketball’s 96-60 win over Niagara

1. Another fine showing for MSU. Now it’s time to see what they have.

EAST LANSING – Ready or not, it’s time for this Michigan State basketball team to be tested, to deal with someone its own size, to face an opponent with a little more rim protection than Niagara provided Thursday night. To be an underdog.

The Spartans will get all of that Tuesday night against Kansas in the Champions Classic in Atlanta.

We’ve learned about all we can from two exhibitions against Division-II teams and two home games against lower-tier Division-I programs, including Thursday’s 96-60 win over Niagara.

We’ve seen the Spartans have to respond to plucky opponents who won’t go away easily. They’ve done that well. We’ve seen Jaden Akins look like he’s up for being the main man on the court when needed. We’ve watched Jaxon Kohler grab 21 rebounds in two games and put up 20 points Thursday, looking like someone MSU will be able to count on. We’ve seen Coen Carr electrify the Breslin Center and be more than a highlight real, and Jeremy Fears Jr. tally 16 assists with just three turnovers in two games.

Let’s see if we’re still thinking the same thing about these guys after Tuesday. This is when we find out if Kohler can rebound like this against legitimate big men, if Akins can lead a team when things get hard.

Nothing that transpired this week suggests MSU can’t compete a level up. But beating Niagara and Monmouth convincingly is only so convincing.

2. An important second half for Frankie Fidler

Frankie Fidler appears to be fighting with his confidence early this season. You can see it in the shots he’s missing and how he attacks the rim. This is a new level for the Omaha transfer. A new city. A lot of eyes and expectations. So it’s all understandable. But MSU needs him in the right headspace. The Spartans need his game.

To that end, the second half Thursday was an important half for Fidler, who had eight points and two rebounds in seven minutes. I saw him smile for the first time in two games — first when he made a great move, missed the shot, grabbed his own rebound and put it back up and in while being fouled. The free throw gave MSU a 56-44 lead early with 16:32 remaining. As Fidler checked out of the game, Tom Izzo gave him an emphatic hand slap, as if MSU’s coach had been waiting for that sort of vigor from Fidler. Later, Fidler buried a 3 in transition from Jase Richardson and his face lit up. Not as much as Richardson’s. But he looked like he was having fun.

MSU doesn’t need Fidler to be Superman. But it needs to him make shots, to rebound, to be adequate defensively. To be a 6-foot-7 threat on the wing. He showed some of that in the second half Thursday.

3. Freshman thoughts – the Niagara edition (aka the Jase Richardson chapter)

There were a couple notable developments on the freshman front Thursday night. First and foremost: The continued sizable impact of Jase Richardson, who’s looking like close to a 20-minute-per-game player this year. The last freshman to do that for MSU was Rocket Watts in 2019-20, seemingly a lifetime ago.

It’s not only clear that Richardson is up for it. It’s becoming obvious that he makes a significant difference when he’s on the floor. The proof is partly in the numbers — 4 for 7 for shooting for 10 points in 17 minutes Thursday, coming off a game against Monmouth where he made 4 of 5 for 10 points with four assists in 22 minutes. But there’s more to it than that. When he has the ball in his hands, be it headed downhill to the basketball or, Thursday, letting it fly from deep, you think something good for MSU is going to happen. Most likely, a bucket. That’s a sense that has to be earned. He’s doing it.

Tom Izzo said this week that he’s been surprised by Richardson, especially that he’s shooting it better than when they recruited him. But he also sees what we’re all seeing: “He’s very smooth. Seems to do things effortlessly,” Izzo said this week. “Not a lot of wasted motion in his game. When he goes, goes with a purpose.”

Like with the rest of the team, it’ll be interesting to see how Richardson reacts to the looming step up in competition — he made fairly open layups a couple times Thursday after getting past Niagara’s first line of defense. If this continues, there’s a chance Richardson winds up in MSU’s closing lineup at some point this season.

The other development Thursday is that, right now, Richardson might be the only freshman in the rotation. Kur Teng, who played two minutes in the first half Monday and then again at garbage time, didn’t play Thursday until the game was just about put away, with MSU leading 68-51 midway through the second half. At that point, he played with Richardson, who was running the point. Redshirt freshman Gehrig Normand, who’s coming off a knee injury, didn’t get in until even later.

There’s an obvious rationale: There are too many guards in front of them and too few minutes to spare. They’ll have to take someone’s minutes to get in the rotation, though I think Izzo and Co. will look for ways to get them involved as much as is reasonably possible. An opening for one of them might come if MSU needs shooting. Teng hit another triple Thursday. He’s got two of MSU’s nine 3s this season in very few minutes played.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.