Joe Rexrode writes a great article about the best 10 basketball players at MSU in the past 10 seasons. He asked several members of the media to list their top ten. Here is a link to his article as well as my top ten list. Remember that it is ONLY based
http://www.greenandwhite.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070730/GW0201/307300001/1023
 Here is the list as I submitted it to Joe:
Top ten of the last ten
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1A. Mateen Cleaves Cleaves is the epitome of what a college basketball player is supposed to be. He was a leader, he was a heart and soul and especially in an Izzo system he is the coach on the court. In all of Izzo’s time at MSU he was the perfect prodigy of Izzo on the court and has the will if Izzo to win with the toughness and commitment it takes to make it happen. The best illustration of this was when Izzo got in Mateen’s face on the bench early in his career and he told him how F-ing bad he was playing, and Mateen fired right back at Izzo on how F-ing bad he was coaching. They are the Ying and Yang and that may never be duplicated again.
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1B. Antonio Smith Smith is the man that not only does Izzo credit for “making it O.K.†to pick MSU, Mateen has told me several times that Smith being at MSU was the single biggest reason that he chose to play here. He was tough and what makes him equally great to Cleaves is that he was a visionary. He saw what MSU could become and believed in Izzo when that was not only not popular, but there was no obvious reason to do so. He is the Godfather of modern MSU basketball.
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3. Charlie Bell Bell was Mr. Smooth at MSU and on and off the court he was a steadying factor. Many of his teammates considered him another father figure when he was simply their age and certainly not ready. He was able to being a huge influence and about positive character issues, but also a steadying hand. He worked well as an encourager and it was not uncommon for him to spend hours with his fellow Spartans not only watching tape, but coaching them up. Nowhere was his influence seen more then when he took the Spartan’s to a final four WITHOUT Mateen. Not one who craved or long for the spotlight, what made him so valuable was his ability to know his role and fulfill it.
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4. Drew Neitzel Drew’s display during the 06-07 season was enough to get him on this list, but you have to look at his previous years and what he has done off the court for the program to not wait long to move him up. His consistency is one thing that Izzo loves about him, but his guts are even more. Perhaps no one since Antonio Smith has possessed his toughness both mentally and physically and that sets him apart. His never say die attitude and his shear guts are at times beyond description. Off of the court, one thing that so few people know about him is that he is one of the best recruiters for the school. His talks with many of the players that have picked MSU in the last 14 months are some of the key reasons that they chose MSU. Drew has a strong desire to be a coach and in the summers, when the pathetic NCAA rules don’t allow the coaches to coach, he spends a lot of time watching film and coaching his teammates. Respected on and off the court from anyone that has to deal with him, he has yet to hoist a championship trophy, but he is a true champion.
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5. Tim Bograkos Bograkos is a great example of what it means to be a Spartan. He had the toughness of Cleaves but not the talent and when he left MSU, he could truly say that he had gotten every last bit of potential out of his talent. On and off the court whether it was hitting the big shot against Kentucky, or verbally undressing a teammate that had failed to give 110% effort, he was a great Spartan and was the bridge from what Mateen had done to what they are today. I am sure that none of my picks would get the criticism that I would get for putting Tim here, but this is about the best basketball players in the last ten years and how many players have left MSU when you knew that there was gas still in their tank and potential untapped? You can’t say that with Bograkos because he left everything he had in the center of the Breslin court. One of his teammates told me a story about him the really put his career in perspective. He told me that Tim gave “so much†every day in practice, that people will not really get the idea of how great a Spartan he was for making his teammates better in practice. That told me a lot.
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6. Andre Hutson If you love MSU basketball and you understand what it is exactly what Tom Izzo wants, then you can’t help but love this guy. Mr. Consistency is what I called him while he was at MSU and that was in my opinion what you could call him. He was part of the top 15 all time in scoring and let’s be honest, that isn’t something you probably remember about him. His presence in the middle and most of all, the way his team responded to him make him great. George Patton said once, “good soldiers fight and gain ground, great soldiers fight and gain ground, but inspire and make the soldiers around them fight and gain ground.â€Â That was a great quote by Patton and a great example of Hutson.                                                                Â
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7. Morris Peterson MO PETE as he would affectionately come to be called scored 1,588 points in his career (10th best all time) but his best accomplishment was that he had the ability that great players do, to not get angry or sullen with the attention given to his team mates. Not only to force the spot light on himself, even to this day when you interview him about MSU the talk is about Izzo and his team. His knack for hitting key shots made him not only one that was fun to watch, but also interesting to understand.
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8. Aloysius Anagonye He was the basketball player in a football players body. He was tough and resilient. He was also the exact kind of player that Izzo loves. He had a role and he filled it. Izzo didn’t need him to score fifty a night but he did need him to “strengthen the middle†and to be the rock that his teams so desperately needed. His stats may not fill the media guide but if there were one that simply said, “Izzo type player,†he would be on that list. Â
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9. Chris Hill Not only was Hill a very good player (13th all time in scoring) but he also was a very good leader that was willing to fill whatever role Izzo needed. He was versatile and had very good court vision and presence. If you want to truly demonstrate what a student athlete is, then Hill was your guy.  He was a good player and a great kid, who possessed the versatility and ability to be what his team needed when Spartan basketball was transitioning from one era of success to the next.
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10. Paul Davis Davis came in with a lot of hype and expectation. He left with being the seventh all time leading scorer and although his career was not marked with a championship of any kind he was consistent. Fairly or not, I think that Davis will be more remembered for being soft and wanting to play away from the paint. The Spartan Nation’s frustration with him was that he could have been so much more then what he what left with. At times his mental lapses and lack of defense was what was so infuriating, but the numbers don’t lie and he did have a good career.
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