
College basketball analyst Andy Katz ranks MSU outside top 25 in latest preseason poll
College basketball analyst Andy Katz is not particularly high on the Spartans entering next year.
Katz released an updated batch of power rankings for the top 37 teams in all of college basketball, and the Spartans were listed outside of his top 25. Katz had Michigan State ranked at No. 27 on his list.
Among Big Ten teams, Katz has Michigan State as his No. 8 squad from the league. Here's how Katz ranked the Big Ten teams included in his list:
No. 1 - Purdue
No. 5 - Michigan
No. 12 - Oregon
No. 16 - UCLA
No. 17 - Illinois
No. 23 - Wisconsin
No. 25 - USC
No. 27 - Michigan State
No. 29 - Maryland
No. 30 - Ohio State
No. 32 - Indiana
Not ranked: Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Penn State, Rutgers and Washington
Michigan State has typically landed in the No. 15 - 20 range nationally and often no lower than top five in the Big Ten in a number of these similar early preseason rankings. So it's fair to say Katz is on the lower end of the spectrum when it comes to the Spartans for next year.
Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Robert Bondy on X @RobertBondy5.

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Indianapolis Star
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Los Angeles Times
5 hours ago
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USC's Lincoln Riley feeling ‘refreshed' as pressure mounts to win in Year 4
LAS VEGAS — While the rest of the college football world spent the summer whipped into a frenzy, swept up by the specter of revenue sharing or congressional intervention or one of the many other landscape-altering changes looming over the sport, Lincoln Riley was able to actually step away and take a breath. In four years as USC's coach, Riley hasn't had many chances to really unplug. There was the sprint ahead of his first season, and the heavy portal push ahead of his second. The third came with a new conference, new defense, new expectations, new pressure. The fourth, by comparison, is starting on a more relaxed note than Riley is used to. There were no phone calls taking up half a day of his family vacation. His fly fishing went mostly unbothered. He even golfed at Pebble Beach in May. 'I'd say I'm feeling as refreshed and recharged as I've been in a long time,' Riley said Thursday during Big Ten media days. 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'It's like you've got the house built, and it's kind of all about the finishes now. You're not trying to put up a wall or anything like that.' Whether USC is actually that close to being a finished product is up for debate. The Trojans' win total has declined in each of Riley's first three seasons, during which his record is worse than that of his predecessor, Clay Helton. Now the Trojans enter his fourth with a raw, unproven commodity at quarterback, a threadbare linebacker room, and an inexperienced offensive line that could already be down a projected starter. There's also the matter of their fourth-quarter issues last season, which saw the Trojans inexplicably cough up leads in five of their six losses. But Riley looks at it differently. 'It's the first time where we had an opportunity at the end of the game to win every single game that we played,' he said. 'The really good teams separate in a lot of their games, and they win the close games they end up in. That's typically how it happens, and that's what we've got to become. And so the way to do it, every part of your program has to be pretty strong. 'We've graduated from being way behind in this area, and being pretty decent in this area to, like, every right now is either good or pretty darn good. Now it's just about taking those small steps in all those areas to, I guess, hypothetically push you over the hump.' The biggest leap in that regard could once again be on defense, where USC went from one of the worst units in the nation in 2023 (121st in scoring defense) to respectable (56th) under defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn. That was no small feat, considering where they came from. And the Trojans have added considerable talent to its defense since. The front seven should benefit greatly from the return of linebacker Eric Gentry and defensive end Anthony Lucas from injury. And on the interior, USC brought in two massive transfers on the interior, as well as a five-star freshman. 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