How MSU's Izzo Wants to Get Kohler Back to Dominating
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EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Michigan State is a better basketball team when Jaxon Kohler is having a good night.
Kohler was arguably MSU's best player during the earlier portions of the season. Through 17 games, Kohler was averaging 14.4 points, 10.1 rebounds, shooting above 50% from three, and had scored at least 10 points in every contest. Since the Spartans went out to the West Coast, though, Kohler has averaged just 8.7 points and 7.9 rebounds a game, while shooting below 25% from deep.
What's notably absent from there are the free throws. Kohler doesn't get to the charity stripe a ton, but he did average 2.1 free throw attempts across his long, successful stretch to open the year. Across this nine-game dip, though, Kohler has only shot seven free throws total, including none in the Spartans' last four games. Tom Izzo wants that to change.
"Jaxon might be as good a free-throw shooter as I've got on my team," Izzo said after Michigan State's 82-59 win over UCLA. "He just doesn't get there [to the foul line], and that's another one of the negatives. We've got some things to get better at, and that's one of them. We've got to get Jaxon fouled."
Importance of Kohler Getting Fouled
Getting to the foul line = a successful possession. Pretty basic math proves that. Michigan State has made 75.8% of its free throws this season. That means when the Spartans end up shooting two, they will average 1.52 points per trip. Illinois has the nation's top offense this year, and it averages 1.27 points per possession with free throws included. MSU has averaged 1.17 points per possession this season.
Kohler is also one of Michigan State's best free-throw shooters, as Izzo said. He made 82.1% of his foul shots last season, and he's made 86.0% of them this season. A shooting foul on Kohler in the paint is essentially worth 1.72 points with that back-of-the-napkin. Izzo would be accusing me of loving analytics right now (sort of guilty), but free throws result in more points than the contested hook shot that Kohler might make 40-50% of the time. For the non-analytics side, there is the psychological boost a player gets from seeing something go through the net.
At the end of the day, Kohler is also a big man. He's supposed to get fouled a lot. Five-man Carson Cooper has shot more than twice as many free throws as Kohler has this season. Cooper isn't the perimeter threat or the crafty scorer Kohler is, but it feels like he shouldn't only be two points per game behind Kohler during Big Ten play (11.1 to 9.1).
Also, getting fouls puts strain on the other team. Getting fouled puts your team one step closer to reaching the bonus, and then it also might result in the starter assigned to you getting into foul trouble, which results in the probably worse replacement coming in, which results in easier offense for you. Kohler being a three-point threat is still great, but the occasional reminder that he's taller than more than 99% of the population seems needed right now.
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A 2025 graduate from Michigan State University, Cotsonika brings a wealth of experience covering the Spartans from Rivals and On3 to his role as Michigan State Spartans Beat Writer on SI. At Michigan State, he was also a member of the world-renowned Spartan marching band for two seasons.
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