Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast: Previewing UCLA

No. 9 Michigan State is gearing up for one of its toughest tests of the season. Our Aidan Champion and host Bryan Anthony Davis break down its upcoming meeting with UCLA on this episode of the Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast.
Feb 1, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA;  Michigan State Spartans guard Tre Holloman (5) shoots the ball against the USC Trojans at Galen Center. Mandatory Credit: William Navarro-Imagn Images
Feb 1, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; Michigan State Spartans guard Tre Holloman (5) shoots the ball against the USC Trojans at Galen Center. Mandatory Credit: William Navarro-Imagn Images / William Navarro-Imagn Images

While UCLA men's basketball isn't ranked, it seems a lot is riding on No. 9 Michigan State men's basketball's matchup against the Bruins on Tuesday.

UCLA is riding a five-game win streak and is making its way back up the Big Ten standings. Meanwhile, the Spartans, who still hold sole possession of the first place spot in the conference, are at risk of consecutive losses to start off February, just after going undefeated in the months of December and January.

Michigan State fell to USC, 70-64, on Saturday and will need to play much better basketball to best the Bruins on their home floor.

Our Aidan Champion and host Bryan Anthony Davis preview Tuesday night's matchup on this latest edition of the Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast.

You can watch the episode below:

Below is a transcript from Michigan State coach Tom Izzo's opening statement from his postgame press conference on Saturday:

Izzo: "I had an assistant that said, ‘What starts bad, ends bad.’ And the start was atrocious. Wanted to go inside right off the bat. Turned the ball over twice. We took a couple of bad shots, I think it was 9-3, and I think we only had one shot. And then, we got down 21-27, and give our guys credit, they bounced back, but USC played better than us. I thought the biggest things that happened in the game -- we got punched in the mouth. That doesn't happen to us very often, and I don't know if we responded very well. Then, before half we did a little better job. But when you don't take care of the boards like we did, even though we outrebounded them by 1 -- that's kind of a facade, they had a couple of times when they had three or four rebounds in a row and scored both times, one on the 3 and one on the 3-point play. And then, uncharacteristically, we shot poorly from the free-throw line, which we’re an 83% free-throw shooting team. And what did we end up shooting? 57% or something. Had a couple of those goofy turnovers, and that's usually the difference in the game. But give credit to USC, they played well. And I’ve been waiting to see how we would respond under some adversity, and today, we didn’t respond very well, so we’ll have to fix that quickly since we have another game coming up.”

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Aidan Champion
AIDAN CHAMPION