ESPN Men's Basketball

For more on Missouri's four incoming transfers, click here. In the meantime, a look at some other transfers set to begin play at their new schools in 2012-13.

Malcolm Armstead, Wichita State (from Oregon): The point guard will be a huge boost to a Shocker backcourt that loses leading scorer Joe Ragland and Toure' Murry. Armstead, who played two seasons at Chipola College under Wichita assistants Greg Heiar and Dana Ford, will be a senior. He averaged 8.6 points and 4.4 assists in his last season with the Ducks (2010-11).

Khem Birch and Bryce Jones, UNLV (from Pittsburgh and USC): Birch, the former McDonald’s All-American, scorched a path from Pittsburgh to Las Vegas, lambasting his former team on the way out the door. Now he’s got a more up-tempo style and a ready-made scoring partner in the form of Mike Moser. Jones, who left USC with similar ill will after reports of an altercation with a teammate followed him out of town, is already a proven scorer -- he averaged 11 points per game before his minutes dropped following the addition of Jio Fontan.

Rotnei Clarke, Butler (from Arkansas): For a Bulldog team that struggled to score and shoot, Clarke is like a Christmas present. Arguably one of the best perimeter shooters in the game, he averaged 15 points and shot 44 percent from the arc before leaving Arkansas. Butler shot a woeful 28 percent from the 3-point line last season.

Will Clyburn and Korie Lucious, Iowa State (from Utah and Michigan State): Fred Hoiberg’s Ellis Island recruiting methods paid huge dividends this past season as the Cyclones' coach was able to meld a group of transfers into an NCAA tournament team. Now it’s time for more tinkering with the additions of Clyburn and Lucious. Lucious, a true point guard, brings two Final Four berths and an early dismissal from Michigan State to Ames. Clyburn left Utah as the team’s leading scorer (17.1 points) and rebounder (7.8).

Jamal Coombs-McDaniel and Taran Buie, Hofstra (from UConn and Penn State): If the risks reap the rewards, then Mo Cassara could right Hofstra’s downward blip quickly. The Pride won just three CAA games this past season, but with Coombs-McDaniel and Buie, he now has two high-caliber players and two terrific scorers on the bench. Both, however, need to embrace real change at Hofstra. Coombs-McDaniel left UConn in search of more playing time, but also after being arrested for marijuana possession. Buie, the most highly ranked recruit to land at Penn State, was suspended indefinitely in his final year there for a violation of team rules.

Larry Drew II, UCLA (from North Carolina): One of the most talked about transfers in recent memory, the Tar Heels' former piñata gets his do-over at Westwood. Certainly he has good timing. After a dismal and fractured season for UCLA, the Bruins landed top recruit Shabazz Muhammad, who, along with the Wear twins, give Drew plenty of options. Just how he handles them, and whether he can cut down on his turnovers, will be the biggest question mark -- one no doubt watched by folks in Los Angeles and Chapel Hill, with marked curiosity.

Luke Hancock, Louisville (from George Mason): The Cardinals rode their defensive tenacity all the way to the Final Four this past season -- mostly because their offense couldn’t take them out of Kentucky. Bringing in Hancock will help change that. He’s not a bona fide superstar, but he’s a solid and efficient scorer who most will remember for the 3-point dagger he dropped on Villanova two seasons ago in the NCAA tournament.

Ryan Harrow, Kentucky (from NC State): Harrow’s addition will go largely unnoticed amid the celebratory din with the arrival of Nerlens Noel, but Harrow could be the most critical part of the Wildcats’ rebuilding. Kentucky went 4-for-4 in recruiting -- four players signed, four ESPNU Top 100 players -- but none of those guys are point guards. Harrow is. More important, he’s a point guard with major minutes under his belt, having started 10 of his final 15 games at NC State.

Colton Iverson, Colorado State (from Minnesota): You have to feel for a kid like Iverson, who opted for Colorado State a year ago in part because Tim Miles recruited him out of high school. Now Miles is gone, off to Nebraska, and Iverson, with one season of college basketball left, has a new coach to adjust to in Larry Eustachy. Eustachy should be thrilled, of course, to have Iverson, a solid big man who averaged 5.4 points and 5.0 boards despite sharing time with Ralph Sampson III in his final season at Minnesota.

Wally Judge, Rutgers (from Kansas State): A former McDonald’s All American who chafed under Frank Martin, Judge gets a second chance with Mike Rice. He’s another feather in Rice’s recruiting cap, but will need to play hard without the disciplinary issues that rendered him ineffective at Kansas State. The Scarlet Knights could use a big body with experience like Judge’s in the Big East wars.

Aaric Murray and Juwan Staten, West Virginia (from La Salle and Dayton): Bob Huggins made no secret about his frustration with his young Mountaineer team this past season, bemoaning after they lost to Gonzaga in March about the team’s lack of defensive pride and offensive ability. And that was before Kevin Jones and Truck Bryant left. Murray and Staten could change that. Murray, a highly touted prospect out of high school, averaged 15.2 points and 7.7 rebounds for La Salle. Staten, meantime, is a solid, tough-minded point guard who averaged 5.4 assists in his one season at Dayton.

D.J. Newbill, Penn State (from Southern Miss): Here’s why Newbill is huge for coach Patrick Chambers: He’s from Philly. If Chambers is going to turn the Nittany Lions around, he has to make recruiting inroads in the state’s biggest city. Newbill helps with that. The fact that he’s also talented -- averaging 9.2 points and 6.2 rebounds in his one season with Eustachy -- is a huge bonus for a Penn State team in dire need of skill infusion.

J.J. O’Brien and Dwayne Polee, San Diego State (from Utah and St. John’s): O’Brien, who elected to leave Utah after Jim Boylen was fired, is a solid scorer who averaged 6.4 points despite missing nine games with a broken foot. Polee, a gifted athlete, started 27 games for Steve Lavin as a freshman, but he was on the wrong coast. Polee is from Los Angeles, and the pull to be closer to home, where his mother has an undisclosed illness, was too much to overcome. Now Steve Fisher, who already had an impressive would-be mulligan season, has even more talent to keep the Aztecs moving forward.

Stacey Poole, Georgia Tech (from Kentucky): Poole, whose playing time headed south as the Wildcats brought in more talented freshmen, made the smart decision to head elsewhere where he will be needed. And Georgia Tech needs him. Poole, a top-50 player out of high school, will help Brian Gregory turn Tech in the right direction. An added plus: Poole’s younger brother, Solomon, 25th in the ESPNU top 60, has the Yellow Jackets on his short list.

Eric Wise, USC (from UC Irvine): Wise was looking to up his future stock, and Southern Cal, to up its future. Call this a match made in heaven. Wise averaged 16.3 points and 8.1 rebounds for the Anteaters, and will be a much welcomed shot in the arm for the Trojans, who averaged an offensive 53 points in winning one Pac 12 game all season.

ESPN analyst Jimmy Dykes on Michigan State guard Korie Lucious being suspended for the rest of the season.

If your only source of information on Korie Lucious was the Michigan State guard's Twitter feed, you'd probably think Lucious had too many breadsticks at dinner.

Late Tuesday night, as Tom Izzo released a statement revealing his season-long dismissal of his junior guard for "conduct detrimental to the program," Lucious himself reacted to the news on his Twitter account. His tweet -- bound to enter Michigan State lore, and already generating some rather hilarious 140-character comedy -- was simply this: "Man did I really mess up this time...off 2 the gym I go!"

If that apparently unironic missive seems like the work of someone who maybe just doesn't quite get it, apparently Izzo and the Spartans agree.

What other explanation is there for Izzo's sudden, unexpected decision? We don't know what Lucious did. Like so many collegiate dismissals, the terms of the announcement were left intentionally vague by both coach and player and, per the usual, it will probably take between a day and a week, and maybe longer, for anything more than rumor and innuendo to emerge from the conspicuous silence.

Thing is, the reason doesn't really matter. Whatever line Lucious crossed -- and he was already on thin ice after his suspension related to a charge for driving while intoxicated in the offseason (he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor reckless driving) -- it was enough for Izzo to kick him off the team in the middle of one of the more disappointing seasons in the vaunted coach's career. The Spartans were already a struggling, underachieving, baffling bunch. It now appears they're in crisis.

You know the story of MSU's season by now, but just in case you missed something: Michigan State entered the season ranked No. 2 in the nation. The Spartans returned the core of a team that made its second straight Final Four appearance in April, including star guard Kalin Lucas, who missed the 2010 tournament run thanks to a ruptured Achilles tendon in his left heel.

Throw in a celebrated recruiting class and an expected dose of Izzo's masterful tournament wizardry, and it's no wonder the Spartans were seen as the one true threat to Duke's reign in 2010-11, and no wonder Michigan State forward Draymond Green told me he expected to win the national title at Big Ten media day in October. Of course he did. Why wouldn't he?

Those were halcyon days. Since then, the Spartans have been exposed by quality opponents (Duke, Texas, Connecticut, et al) and conference also-rans (Penn State) alike thanks to a turnover-prone and inconsistent offense that can't seem to get its considerable talent -- players like Lucas, Green and Durrell Summers, to name a few -- to congeal into anything resembling a competent side. Instead of competing for a Big Ten title, Michigan State has stumbled to a 12-7 record after 19 games, including a 4-3 mark in Big Ten play, and the Spartans have been noticeably reeling all the while.

It hasn't been much better of the court. After all, the Lucious dismissal isn't Izzo's first personnel issue of the season. The coach dismissed guard Chris Allen in August after a prolonged deliberation period during which Allen worked out with the team and told the media he expected to return before his coach eventually sent him packing. Allen's absence has left a noticeable gap; without him the Spartans lack a consistent long-range threat. It's one of the main reasons -- alongside Michigan State's ongoing and much-discussed turnover woes -- Sparty hasn't scored at an efficient rate this season.

There have also been issues with the inconsistent Summers, who Izzo benched for a "lack of enthusiasm," as well as forward Derrick Nix, who nearly left the team in November over concerns about his playing time. In the meantime, Izzo was himself suspended for a silly recruiting violation incurred at MSU's summer camp.

Here's the thing: Izzo is occasionally -- OK, frequently -- treated with deference by the media. It's no surprise why. For one, he's very, very good at his job. More than that, though, Izzo is genuine, professional, and considerate in his dealings with the ink-stained, quote-starved wretches in the interview room, most of whom just want coaches to treat them with the same respect those same coaches demand of their players and staff. (Unless of course those media members are trying to figure out whether he plans to leave the Spartans for the Cleveland Cavaliers job. As Izzo himself admitted, that was not his finest hour.)

You attract more flies with honey than vinegar, which is a horrible cliché but also happens to be true, and Izzo has attracted plenty of flies in his tenure at Michigan State. You can question whether that should be true or not -- some fans tend to think reporters are whining when they complain about coaches who thrive on psychological press conference power plays, and maybe those fans have a point -- but like it or not, it is true.

All of which was a wordy way to preface this: You can probably expect some folks to claim Izzo is being "brave" by dismissing Lucious at this point in the season. Some will argue that he's "taking a stand" and "setting an example" and "sacrificing wins for the good of his program." All of which is probably correct. But it's also correct to say that this Michigan State team -- a team with enough talent to make it to the Final Four without its best player eight months ago -- has been a disappointing mess from the moment it took the floor in November.

Does anyone think Izzo has had a good season? Are the Spartans improving in any tangible way? Why can't this team get control of its destructive addiction to turnovers? Why haven't Summers and Delvon Roe developed into consistent players? Why hasn't Izzo told Lucas to stop shooting so many inefficient long-range 2s? And -- most importantly -- why has the past year been a nonstop rush of personnel issues and off-court drama? If I'm a Spartans fan, I may think Izzo is a god, but I'm still asking those questions. Among many others.

Fortunately for those fans, believe it or not, there is some good news here. For one, Michigan State still has the majority of its Big Ten schedule left to play, and if we know anything about Michigan State under Tom Izzo -- and in particular this group of players -- it's that it's never too late to figure things out just in time for a surprising tournament run. First rule of college basketball punditry: Discount the Spartans at your own risk.

The other bit of sunshine is that Lucious, for all his brilliant shot-making ability, was not a particularly effective player this season. His offensive rating to date is 92.9 (which is below average nationally). He shot 28.4 percent from beyond the arc despite having the second-most long-range attempts (81) on his team. He turned the ball over on 24.8 percent of his possessions, and his effective field goal percentage (40.4) was the lowest of any Michigan State player.

Lucious' suddenly available minutes are likely to go to freshman guard Keith Appling, who hasn't exactly set the world ablaze himself, but who has been a much more accurate shooter all season long. If the Spartans can get Appling to take care of the ball -- something neither he nor Lucious have done well this season -- this team might even improve.

Of course, there's also the chance that Izzo's decision snaps MSU out of its season-long funk, imbuing this team with a much-needed sense of urgency for a critical February stretch run. You never know.

In reality, though, this dismissal is basically what it looks like: A struggling, disappointing, distraction-riddled team canning one of its starters at just the moment it desperately needs experience, leadership and -- most of all -- effective guard play. If things were already bad in East Lansing, on Tuesday night they officially got worse.

It's enough to make a Spartans fan want to blow off some steam. As Lucious himself might suggest: Off to the gym you go?

Our own Andy Katz will have a full recap later tonight, but in the meantime here are some quick thoughts on Syracuse’s 72-58 win over Michigan State.

• Syracuse’s famed zone is as good as ever. This is no surprise -- you can’t spell “Syracuse” without “2-3 zone.” (OK, so you can, but just go with it.) And this zone isn’t a sit-back-and-force-bad-shots type of 2-3, though it does have that effect. The Orange zone extends, pressures shooters, forces turnovers and slides seamlessly from one end of the court to the other. Michigan State was able to find gaps here and there, but more often than not (and especially in the first half), the Spartans were stuck tossing the ball around on the perimeter, trying and failing to get Draymond Green a touch at the top of the key. And when Michigan State did break down the zone, Syracuse’s lengthy interior defenders were there to erase the opportunity. A thoroughly impressive defensive effort.

• In the meantime, Michigan State becomes the best -- and most maddening -- 6-3 team in the country. If this was any other team, you’d ask for someone to kindly show you where the beef is. (If only there were a catchier way of asking that question.) But MSU’s losses have come against very good teams. All of them have come in either neutral or hostile environments. And the Spartans have flashed plenty of Final Four potential in each. The problem, as always: turnovers. MSU gave the ball away 16 times on Tuesday night, which is in character, given that Michigan State entered the game as one of the worst teams in the country in turnover percentage. At some point, this group is going to have to learn how to take care of the ball. If it doesn't, we’ll still be here in February talking about how good the Spartans look, and how they’ll figure it out come March, and how much better they'd be if they could just keep control of the ball. Cross file that one under “Tom Izzo” and “nightmare scenario.” In other words: The time to stop turning the ball over is now.

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  Speaking of which, did you see Izzo’s face on the bench as the final seconds ticked away? Cross file that one under “locker room speeches” and “glad I won’t be there.”

• Syracuse is not a 3-point shooting team, and knows it. The Orange attempted a mere 11 3s and made only two of them. This team is at its best when attacking the rim, and they were at their best Tuesday night. Rick Jackson opened the game with a dunk-fest, and Syracuse was able to get to the rim in multiple hyphenated ways -- post-ups, curl-screens, dribble-drives, dump-offs, all of it. The Cuse will have to make some shots eventually -- there are good shooters on this team -- but until that day, they seem to have the whole “get easy looks” thing down pat.

• Most impressive for Syracuse? Jackson, of course: 17 points, 16 rebounds, six of which came on the offensive end. That’s an obvious one. But Scoop Jardine, who got his 19 points on an efficient 7-of-9 shooting, wasn’t too bad either.

• Most impressive for Michigan State? Durrell Summers scored 18 points and grabbed six rebounds, though he was characteristically off-and-on from beyond the arc. And though he only scored 6 points, Draymond Green continued his impressive streak of versatile play with an 11-rebound, five-assist, three-steal night.

• Oh, and Kalin Lucas still doesn’t look 100 percent. Whether the Achilles is still sore, or Lucas is still just rusty from the lost offseason, he’s clearly missing his touch and, like the rest of his team, is struggling to hold onto the ball (Lucas had six turnovers Tuesday).

• I think we’re officially past the physical feeling-out point of the year for both players and referees. This game was physical, but never overly so. The refs let both teams play, but never let the game turn into a slugfest. There were questionable calls here and there -- aren’t there always? -- but in general, it was great to see an officiating crew let the game unfold with a good sense of where the line eventually had to be drawn.

• At this point in his career, the best description for Korie Lucious is “shotmaker.” Lucious is still a little too turnover-prone to be truly efficient, but his ability to break down defenders and hit shots from everywhere -- whether a set shot from behind the arc or slightly fading from 15 feet -- has kept the Spartans in more than one game this season.

• Did we mention that Michigan State needs to stop turning the ball over? Have we talked about this enough already? Because, yeah, wow. Michigan State really needs to stop turning the ball over. Basketball is a mysterious fig, but sometimes it’s pretty simple. This is one of those times.

Saddle Up is our daily preview of the night's best basketball action. Tonight's installment focuses primarily on the Jimmy V Classic. Why? Because look at these games! That's why.

No. 14 Memphis vs. No. 4 Kansas, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN: Who are the Memphis Tigers? The truth is, even after seven wins in seven games, we still don't know.

That has a lot to do with Memphis' nonconference schedule to this point. The Tigers have played only two teams with a shot at making the NCAA tournament thus far (Miami and Western Kentucky, both at home) and while they handled both opponents with relative ease, they've also struggled at times, especially in a narrow overtime win over Arkansas State last week. Tonight's matchup with Kansas will be, without question, Memphis' first entreé into the realm of the elite, and thanks to a paltry schedule, we have few indicators as to how Josh Pastner's team will perform against top competition. Is this a team destined to win a conference title and little more? Or can this team reach for the Final Four?

It's not just schedule, though. Our questions about the Tigers also have to do with personnel. Pastner's team is heavy on freshmen, which is a little like saying the ocean is heavy on water. The wunderkind coach snared a top-four recruiting class in 2010, and those first-year players have wasted no time claiming the majority of Memphis' offensive responsibilities. Four of the Tigers' five biggest contributors on a per-possession basis are freshmen: Joe Jackson, Will Barton, Chris Crawford and Tarik Black all average between 28.1 and 20.0 percent in usage rate. Jackson, who owns that 28.1 percent, has especially dominated the ball.

Those freshmen have been effective, but on an inconsistent basis. In fact, the most efficient offensive player on the team has been junior Wesley Witherspoon, who has combined an impressive ability to get to the line -- Witherspoon shoots free throws more often than any other player in the country -- with highly accurate shooting from the field.

What does all this mean? It means a team dominated by freshmen should think about getting its junior forward involved as often as possible. That could stand as a general rule, but it makes extra sense tonight (in so far as something can make "extra sense," I guess). Memphis is forced to make up for its lack of interior size and experience with athleticism on the wing. That won't change against Kansas, which has a handful of viable forwards (Marcus and Markieff Morris, Thomas Robinson, Jeff Withey) who excel on the defensive glass but are sporadically foul-prone. To have a chance against a team like KU, the Tigers have to do what they do best on offense: get to the free throw line.

Meanwhile, Memphis' biggest task on defense will be finding someone to deal with the aforementioned Morii. The Morris twins are almost perfectly complementary: Marcus is the elite stretch-post scorer, Markieff the standout rebounder, particularly on the defensive end. Until Josh Selby finishes his NCAA-mandated suspension, KU's forwards will continue to key the team's success on both ends of the floor. That's been going well so far -- Kansas is No. 1 in Ken Pomeroy's overall adjusted efficiency ranking, after all -- but as UCLA showed us Thursday, the Jayhawks are far from complete, and far from invincible.

Still, they'll be by far the biggest challenge these Memphis freshmen have faced so far. So how good are they? How good are the Memphis Tigers? We're about to get a pretty good idea.

(For more on Memphis and Kansas, read Dana O'Neil's preview here.)

No. 8 Michigan State vs. No. 7 Syracuse, 9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN: Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present reason No. 5,498 that rankings don't matter.

Syracuse is ranked a spot higher than Michigan State in the latest coaches' poll, but few would consider Syracuse the better team right now, or the better prospect to make the Final Four by the end of the season. Michigan State's diminished ranking is due to two losses -- vs. the Connecticut Kemba Walkers in Maui, and at Duke last Wednesday night -- that hardly indict the Spartans as pretenders. Meanwhile, Syracuse is undefeated at 8-0, but six of those wins came at home, and at least four of them came after nail-biting affairs with so-so teams like William & Mary (63-60), Michigan (53-50), Georgia Tech (80-76), and NC State (65-59). There might not be a tourney team in that bunch. It's not exactly the most glittering résumé.

What's wrong with Syracuse? Why hasn't Jim Boeheim's team been blowing opponents out? Start with shooting: Syracuse is averaging 29.7 percent from 3, 49.8 percent from 2, and 63.0 percent from the foul line. Absent anyone with consistent outside shooting ability -- Andy Rautins and Wesley Johnson are not walking through that door -- the Orange have been getting by on a steady diet of offensive rebounds and low-turnover hoops. And, of course, Boeheim's fabled 2-3 zone. The zone is working yet again; Syracuse almost never fouls opposing shooters -- it ranks No. 5 in opponent free throw rate -- and the Orange have contained outside shooting and forced enough turnovers to squeak by against mediocre competition.

Michigan State, as you might have heard, is not mediocre. The Spartans are already quite good at pretty much -- key phrase there -- everything. They shoot the ball well, both from beyond the arc (41.7 percent) and inside it (52.3 percent). They stifle opposing scorers. They clean up on the glass, especially on defense. Draymond Green is as versatile and effective as big men get. Kalin Lucas has already showed plenty of his pre-Achilles tear self. Durrell Summers can be an unstoppable scorer. The Spartans' front court is deep and physical. Korie Lucious might be the best reserve point guard in the country. (Given his usage rate, Lucious barely qualifies as a reserve.) The list goes on and on.

The only thing holding Michigan State back? (Here's where that "pretty much" rears its ugly head.) Turnovers. The Spartans are one of the worst teams in the country at wasting possessions with turnovers. Izzo's team turns the ball over on 25.8 percent of its possessions, ranking it No. 325 in the stat; the only major-conference teams giving the ball away more frequently are Baylor and Florida State.

That sounds bad enough on paper, but it was evident in action Wednesday night at Duke. Michigan State turned the ball over 20 times on the road against the best team in the country, and somehow still had a chance to win. Turnovers have been a recurring blight on Izzo's otherwise brilliantly coached teams in recent years, and if Michigan State wants to accomplish its goals -- this year, that means national title or bust -- it has to find a way to cut down on giveaways.

How does this play out tonight? If recent trends hold, Michigan State should take, and make, a lot of 3-pointers. It will stifle Syracuse's sputtering scorers from the outside-in. And the game will be close, because the Spartans will give the ball away far too often.

Both teams need to break the cycle of self-defeating tendencies. What better time than now?

(For more on Michigan State and Syracuse, read Andy Katz's preview here.)

Michigan State coach Tom Izzo has kept mostly mum on the topic of Korie Lucious.

Lucious was arrested in late August for driving while intoxicated. Lucious blew a .09, one-hundredth of a point above Michigan's legal limit, but because he had yet to turn 21, it didn't matter how much or how little Lucious went over the limit. Many presumed Izzo would suspend Lucious for an undetermined stretch, but Izzo hadn't moved on the matter publicly since September.

It appears, according to The Grand Rapids Press, a suspension is still the plan:

Lucious, who was charged with drunken driving in August, will miss at least two games, Izzo said. As few as one of those games could be a regular-season game, Izzo said. Basically, Lucious could be suspended from two to four games. At least one of the games will be an exhibition and one in the regular season.

The games under consideration are exhibitions Nov. 2 against Saginaw Valley State and Nov. 8 against Nebraska-Omaha and the first two regular-season games, Nov. 12 against Eastern Michigan and Nov. 16 against South Carolina.

The punishment will have some practicality mixed in; some of Izzo's decision will be based on the relative health of other Michigan State players, but the coach also said he is trying to make sure the "penalty [fits] the crime, too."

Anyway, there you go, Michigan State fans. Lucious will miss anywhere from two to four games, none of them will be particularly challenging games, and the Spartans guard should be back in time for the Maui Invitational.

As if Michigan State's offseason needed another bit of news, one more bit of excitement, an added dash of spice to what is already an overseasoned dish. Most Spartans fans would kindly like the season to start soon; it seems their team is unable to make it more than a few weeks without another ostensibly negative headline.

This time, and not for the first, the headline involves junior point guard Korie Lucious. Per a release from MSU media relations, Lucious underwent "successful knee arthroscopy for a small meniscus tear in his left knee on Tuesday afternoon." Lucious is expected to miss anywhere from two to six weeks. His coach, Tom Izzo, is feeling rather bad about that:

"I feel bad for Korie," said head coach Tom Izzo. "He's had a great fall on the court, playing some of the best basketball of his time at Michigan State. The injury is similar to the one Goran Suton had during his senior year, and he was able to return in a short amount of time. We expect that Korie will heal in a similar fashion."

For what it's worth, arthroscopic surgery is one of humankind's foremost medical miracles. Lucious should take solace in knowing that modern medical science has made it possible for him to suffer what sounds like a serious injury -- it is never encouraging to hear the word "tear" in regards to one's knee -- in relatively short order. With two weeks until Midnight Madness and about six weeks until Michigan State opens its season, he might not even miss any games.

Still, it adds another issue for Lucious and Izzo to deal with on top of August's arrest for operating while intoxicated. (Lucious, who is under 21, was caught driving with a blood alcohol content of .09. It was his first offense and he plead guilty to a reduced charge of misdemeanor reckless driving.) It looks like Izzo isn't going to suspend Lucious for the incident, but now, with the injury, that might not matter. What will matter is whether highly touted freshman guard Keith Appling can step in and play valuable minutes right away.

If so, Michigan State won't miss a step. If not, the Spartans could, as they are wont to do under Izzo, get off to an uncomfortably slow start.

Not that it would have mattered anyway, because Korie Lucious is only 20. But the point stands: Lucious' arrest Monday morning on charges of drunken driving is bad news for Lucious, for coach Tom Izzo, and for the Michigan State Spartans in general.

The news is still coming in, but here's what the world knows so far. Lucious was pulled over at 2:30 a.m. Monday in East Lansing. He was administered a breathalyzer test. He registered a .09 blood alcohol level. The legal limit in Michigan is .08. Lucas isn't yet old enough to drink, so the legal limit doesn't apply to his predicament; he would be in trouble even if he would have been at .07 or .06. (Lucious' age makes the theoretical discussion over whether .09 should be considered "drunken driving" beside the point.)

In the meantime, Tom Izzo is waiting to comment until he "gathers all the facts."

The immediate repercussions are hard to gauge. Punishments vary as widely as coaching styles. Lucious could miss a percentage of the season, or he could miss all of it. That will depend on how lenient Izzo is feeling, whether Lucious shows the appropriate amount of regret, and whether Lucious has a record of renting space in Izzo's famed doghouse, a la dismissed senior guard Chris Allen. (Which, to my knowledge, he doesn't.)

Speaking of Allen, two things. One: If Izzo was willing to dismiss his senior guard for a variety of closed-door, team-related, non-illegal offenses, does Lucious stand a chance to be back this season? And two: As Jeff Eisenberg notes, does Izzo wish he'd have repaired things with Allen rather than boot him off the team? Lucious' improved play in 2009-10 -- especially his impressive stint in place of injured guard Kalin Lucas -- was one of the reasons Michigan State was supposed to be able to easily discard Allen. They had other pieces in place. But what now?

All of that remains to be seen; we'll wait for Izzo's response to the facts he continues to gather. But at this stage, it's all ugly. Michigan State's wild offseason just got a little bit wilder.

For the next month or so, our friends at The Mag are previewing one high-profile school per day for their Summer Buzz series. For the sake of all that is synergistic, yours truly will be attempting the same, complementing each comprehensive Insider preview with some adjusted efficiency fun. Today's subject: Michigan State . Up next? Ohio State.

How unlikely was the Spartans' 2009-10 NCAA tournament run? The Spartans were the only team in the Final Four ranked outside the top 20 in overall adjusted efficiency. Tom Izzo's team wasn't dominant on either end of the floor, but they were a Tom Izzo team through and through. They rebounded well on both ends of the floor, they guarded well enough to force opponents' misses, they kept their opposition off the free throw line, and they found ways to win close games. And somehow, with Kalin Lucas stuck on the sideline thanks to injury, the Spartans made it back to the precipice of another NCAA title. It was, all things considered, a remarkable run.

2010-11 is a different story. Lucas will be back from injury, as will pretty much everyone on the team not named Raymar Morgan. The Spartans will add top talent in the form of a No. 10-ranked recruiting class. This year, a Final Four wouldn't just be a nice bonus. It's a legitimate expectation.

Whether or not the Spartans can replicate their late-season success in 2010-11 might come down to a stat that has haunted Michigan State teams in the past five years: turnovers.

Last year, the Spartans gave the ball away far too frequently. Michigan State gave the ball away on 21.3 percent of their possessions, good enough to rank them in the bottom half of all Division I teams in turnover percentage. On the defensive side of the ball, Michigan State was even worse; MSU opponents turned the ball over on 18.7 percent of their possessions in 2009-10.

This has become something of a pattern for recent Michigan State teams, even good ones. 2005 was the last year the Spartans had a turnover rate that ranked them in the top 100 of all Division I teams. Since then, Michigan State has been plagued by the turnover bug -- or, on defense, the lack thereof -- in varying forms each year.

With Lucas returning in 2010-11, the Spartans should improve. Lucas' turnover rate in 2009-10 was 18.4 percent. After his injury, Lucas was replaced by backup point guard Korie Lucious, who gave the ball away 27.7 percent of the time. Lucious was a capable backup in a variety of ways, but his proclivity for turning the ball over played right into the Spartans' main weakness.

Lucious will have to improve individually if he wants to split time with Lucas, and the Spartans as a whole will have to get better, lest an incredibly promising season be derailed by the one deficiency that seems to come back and haunt Izzo's teams each and every year. The 2010-11 Spartans are loaded -- they have veteran experience, returning talent and should be able to make up for the loss of Raymar Morgan (an underrated player in his own right, especially on the defensive end) without missing a beat. The makings of a great team are all in place. Now they just have to cut down on those turnovers.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Quick thoughts on Butler’s historic win over Michigan State:

• I love how calm and cool Butler coach Brad Stevens was when he walked over to shake hands with Michigan State coach Tom Izzo. He had his left hand in his pocket like he was going for a Sunday stroll.

• How many other teams bring the dog and have it sit on the court after a big win like this?

• Butler won this game with Shelvin Mack dealing with cramps for most of the 40 minutes, going in and out of the lineup.

• The biggest play of the game had to be Shawn Vanzant getting an offensive rebound and feeding Gordon Hayward for a bucket, giving the Bulldogs a 50-46 lead with 1:36 to play. Butler struggled most of the game to get offensive rebounds.

• Michigan State never got its offense going after quick 3s by Korie Lucious to start the game.

• Michigan State was fortunate to get to the Final Four without Kalin Lucas. Great ending for the Spartans as once again Tom Izzo does a phenomenal job.

• Ronald Nored made a huge steal late in the game and two key free throws. Butler did what it needed to do at the line to finish this game.

• How about the Horizon League? This will do wonders for its national profile.

• Sure the game was dull at times, a defensive grind, but it still had drama at the end. That’s fine. I never thought it would be a highlight-reel contest.

• Hayward is a stud who will be a high pick in the NBA draft.

• Butler is playing for the national title and it's no fluke.

• Wow.

INDIANAPOLIS -- We're halfway through what's thus far been an up-and-down game -- a torrid start followed by a major drought in the closing stretches. Fittingly enough, we're tied at 28. Here's some instant reaction and a look ahead to the second half:

HOW THE HALF WAS WON: Butler's guards couldn't contain Korie Lucious and Durrell Summers. The Bulldogs have been shutting down great guards throughout the tournament, holding Syracuse's Andy Rautins and Kansas State's Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente to minimal contributions in low-scoring games. Not so in the first half tonight. Lucious and Summers were able to find open looks, and for much of the half, they knocked them down.

TURNING POINT: With two minutes left in the first half, it looked like Butler was starting to fade. They couldn't get a bucket, and they had just been victimized by a perfect Lucious bounce pass through their defense, which Summers finished in stride for an easy layup and a 28-23 lead. But with 30 seconds left, Shelvin Mack caught the ball on the wing in the break and iced a 3, the Bulldogs' first since the four-minute mark, and their first non-Hayward bucket since there were eight minutes remaining.

PLAYER OF THE HALF: Gordon Hayward, Butler -- 13 points, three rebounds. Hayward's was 5-of-9 shooting -- including a barrage of 3s and one spinning fadeaway that had to make the NBA scouts in the house drool -- keeping Butler close throughout the first half. The Bulldogs weren't particularly bad from the field. But if Hayward hadn't made a few key 3s, the Spartans could have opened a lead in their torrid first few minutes.

PLAYER OF THE HALF II: Lucious of Michigan State -- eight points, one rebound, three assists, one steal. The aforementioned Lucious didn't just score and needle gorgeous bounce passes through Butler's vaunted defense. He also -- and most importantly -- didn't turn the ball over. Butler has been great at turning its opponents over in its run to the Final Four, but Lucious handled the ball well and Michigan State didn't waste any possessions against the grind-it-out Bulldogs.

STAT OF THE HALF: Offensive rebounds. Butler was never going to dominate Michigan State on the offensive glass, but the Bulldogs were almost invisible after their shots hit the rim. Butler grabbed three of their misses, good for a paltry 17.6 percent from the field. Butler doesn't need to grab many rebounds; Stevens prefers his guys get back and set up that difficult defense rather than crash the glass on the offensive end. But it wouldn't hurt for Butler to preserve a few more of their possessions in the second half.

STAT OF THE HALF II: Fouls. There were lots of them for both teams, a combined 16 total. Michigan State committed nine of those fouls, and Raymar Morgan got three of them, an affliction that caused him to miss much of the first half. The referees seem dedicated to keeping this game relatively free of overwhelming physicality, so Morgan will have to be especially careful in the early moments of the second.

WHAT BUTLER HAS TO DO TO WIN:
1. Hayward has to keep attacking the rim. Michigan State is struggling to match up with him, and with Morgan in foul trouble there's no one that should be able to stop him.
2. You too, Shelvin Mack. Don't settle.
3. Butler has to figure out a way to close down on Lucious, Summers, and the rest of Michigan State's athletic guards better. Butler got here by dominating its opponents on the perimeter, by making everything difficult, by forcing turnovers. That hasn't happened tonight.

WHAT MICHIGAN STATE HAS TO DO TO WIN:
1. Get lots of help on Hayward. You don't want to give up too many open looks, but rotating away from any non-Mack shooters in Butler's lineup is a pretty safe bet. Smart rotations could negate Butler's most effective player without revealing too many holes elsewhere.
2. Keep hitting shots. Simple, but true. It's hard to get good interior looks on Butler's defense. The help is too good. If the shots stop falling, some of that vaunted offensive rebounding wouldn't hurt.
3. Attack Matt Howard. Butler has been able to play without Howard in the past, but his rebounding would be a major boost on offense, and if MSU can keep him foul trouble, they can continue to dominate the glass.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Some thoughts at the half of Butler-Michigan State:

• I thought Butler would have more of a home-court advantage. Nope. There are certainly plenty of Butler folks, but it doesn’t sound like the Bulldogs have an overwhelming advantage.

• I’d love for the NCAA to alternate the seating in each section so we would have more balanced cheering. I don’t like seeing one whole side sitting down during the game.

• Gordon Hayward is the best pro prospect on the court. The Butler forward has a sweet stroke on 3s and had an NBA-level turnaround jumper. He has kept Butler in the game.

• Butler’s Matt Howard can’t stay out of foul trouble. He picked up his second foul only six minutes into the game.

• Michigan State’s Draymond Green has quite a skill set. He can make the face-the-basket shot and put the ball on the court and drive to the hoop.

• If Durrell Summers and Korie Lucious, who started out with a pair of 3s, can make shots in the second half, the Spartans should win. That’s a big "if" though.

• Butler has to get more production from other players beside Hayward and Shelvin Mack.

• Butler’s offensive rebounding has been awful. The Bulldogs went chunks of time without one in the first half. MSU is too good on the glass. Butler’s one-shot offense will only take it so far.

• Michigan State’s Raymar Morgan picked up three first-half fouls. Had he stayed in the game I’m not so sure the outcome would have been much different. The Spartans got quality play from Garrick Sherman.

• Mack’s 3-pointer to tie the game with 36 seconds left in the first half energized a crowd that had become somewhat listless.

• I love that I can look to my left and see clouds and blue sky. I’ve become a fan of Lucas Oil Stadium for college hoops. Still want to see this game in Conseco for the full-effect atmosphere.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Michigan State's Korie Lucious has already done what Syracuse and Kansas State couldn't do against Butler in last week's West Regional in Salt Lake City.

Lucious, a sophomore from Milwaukee, opened Saturday night's national semifinal at Lucas Oil Stadium with 3-pointers on the Spartans' first two possessions. He scored eight of Michigan State's first 22 points in the first half. MSU had a 22-20 lead with 7:26 to play in the half.

But the Spartans got a pretty good scare when Lucious came up limping with about 16 1/2 minutes to go in the half. MSU trainers examined his right ankle on the bench, but Lucious went back into the game a couple of minutes later.

Michigan State is already playing without leading scorer Kalin Lucas, who ruptured his Achilles tendon in the Spartans' second-round game against Maryland. He averaged 14.8 points in 33 games.

A big reason Butler became the first team to advance to the Final Four in its hometown since UCLA in 1972 was the defensive play of its backcourt.

Guards Shelvin Mack and Ronald Nored shut down Syracuse's Andy Rautins in the first half of a 63-59 upset of the No. 1-seeded Orange in the West Regional semifinals, and then held Kansas State's Denis Clemente without a field goal in the first half of a 63-56 upset of the No. 2-seeded Wildcats in the regional finals.

ST. LOUIS -- In the latest installment of that long-running hit series, “Tom Izzo, Lord of the Dance,” the climactic scene went like this:

Korie Lucious driving, spinning, fading back and springing up on one foot to splash the game-breaking shot over last week’s hero of March, Ali Farokhmanesh.

Great move. Great shot. Great moment for all of SpartanKind. Michigan State evicts Northern Iowa, 59-52, in what can legitimately be called an upset.

But peel back a few layers on that play and you see why Izzo is just so ridiculously good at this time of year.

Lucious was at the tail end of a career-high 39 minutes – nine more than his previous high and 17 more than his season average. He was playing all those minutes at point guard because the normal starting point, leading scorer Kalin Lucas, was on crutches on the sideline after tearing his Achilles tendon last week. He had missed six of his eight shots on the night against the unyielding Panthers defense.

And Izzo had enough faith in his sophomore backup to call a clear-out for him with the shot clock draining and less than 100 seconds to play and State holding a two-point lead. It wasn’t the do-or-die shot of last Sunday, when Lucious beat Maryland with a 3-pointer at the buzzer, but it was huge.

“Just a hunch,” Izzo said of the play call, one he’s made many times for Lucas. “He said he felt good, and I could tell he was confident. And that was a big, big play.”

That, in summation, is what the March version of IzzoBall is all about. The hunches all come up roses. The injuries are overcome. The puzzling performances from the regular season don’t matter anymore.

And somebody always steps up.

Or several somebodies.

In addition to Lucious on this night, it was Delvon Roe, playing 27 minutes on a torn meniscus and somehow coming up with the most spectacular play of the night, soaring in out of nowhere to crush a rebound dunk early in the second half as Michigan State roared back from a seven-point halftime deficit.

“He gave us every ounce he had,” Izzo said of Roe. “… It’s a cliché: lay it on the line. He laid it all on the line, I can promise you that.”

And it was Durrell Summers, continuing his NCAA tournament flourish with a game-high 19 points. Summers is averaging 20 points per game in the tourney, after averaging 8 over his previous eight games. At times in the first half, Summers was the only thing keeping Michigan State in the game. And at one moment in particular in the second half, he rose up and hit a 3 with 7:27 left to give the Spartans the lead for good.

“At certain times in the game we just kind of huddled up and said it’s winning time,” Summers said. “Pretty much what winning time means for us is we’re going to get down and bite the floor on defense and everything’s going to go through our defense.”

Bite the floor. Perfect. That’s defense the Izzo way. And this was defense the Izzo way:

Northern Iowa’s last basket in this game came with 10 minutes and 21 seconds to play. All the Panthers could manage the rest of the way was 10 free throws, as Michigan State stubbornly took the game away.

That truly was doing unto UNI what UNI had done to so many other teams. In the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, the Panthers held Wichita State without a field goal for 10 minutes in the final, held Bradley without a field goal for seven in the semis and Drake without a field goal for 21 minutes in the quarters.

Now here they were on the receiving end.

“They made us take some tough shots, and they played great defense in the second half,” said Farokhmanesh, who made just 1-of-6 outside the arc.

Northern Iowa joins a long list of teams who have seen their seasons end against Izzo over the past 12 NCAA tourneys. He’s now knocking on the door of a sixth Final Four since 1999, close enough to taste it.

Tennessee stands between Izzo and Indy. He has less than two days to get his hobbled team regrouped, rested and ready to face the big, athletic Volunteers.

“It’s great when you’re working at this time of year,” Izzo said. “And I’m going to be working. My whole staff will be working for the next 40 hours, and we’ll see what we can do.”

We know what Tom Izzo can do in this Dance. That’s why he’s the lord of it.

One is an experienced No. 1 seed that dominated the ACC, the ACC tournament and the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. The other is a No. 5 seed that limped into March, lost its best player to a season-ending injury and needed a last-second shot from an obscure reserve with a funny name to advance to the second weekend.

There is plenty to separate Duke and Michigan State in 2009-10, but there are at least two things each team now has in common: They're both among college basketball's elite. (Nike agrees; both are part of the Nike Elite sub-franchise of college basketball gear and both have those weird watermark designs you might have noticed on the back of their respective uniforms.) And after Sweet 16 wins in Friday night's late session, both are moving on to familiar territory: the Elite Eight.

Another similarity? The pedigree of the coaches on the sideline. On Sunday, Tom Izzo will be coaching in his seventh Elite Eight. He's 5-1 in regional finals. Mike Krzyzewski will be coaching in his 12th. He's 10-1 in regional finals. If these are elite programs -- Nike said so! -- they are elite because of those men, the two best, most experienced coaches left in the NCAA tournament.

Yet another similarity? (I promise I'm not going to keep doing this.) The way they won. In Houston, Duke held off a scrappy defensive effort from Purdue, eventually pulling away and winning 70-57. Meanwhile, Michigan State grinded out a 59-52 win over Northern Iowa in St. Louis, ending the Panthers' miracle run to the Sweet 16 in the process.

Both wins featured plenty of defense. Michigan State held UNI to 0.9 points per possession, a defensive stronghold that got more and more difficult for Northern Iowa to crack as the game went on. In the last 10:22, Michigan State held UNI to 10 free throws -- and not a single made field goal -- to seal the win. Korie Lucious was big in Kalin Lucas' absence, notching 10 points, six rebounds, four assists and four steals and one clutch whirling turnaround jumper with 95 seconds remaining to give MSU a decisive two-possession advantage.

UNI was always going to play a slow, defensive game. The testament to the Spartans is not just that they were able to play this style effectively for 40 minutes, but that when it came down to it, they were able to beat the Panthers at their own game. Neither team grabbed many offensive rebounds. Neither team committed too many turnovers. And neither team shot the ball particularly well. The game came down to stops -- who could stop whom, when, and how. In the end, the Spartans stopped the Panthers. Comprehensively so.

Meanwhile, Duke was in its own defensive battle for much of its game against putative underdog Purdue. (Despite the programs on hand, it's not unreasonable to say that UNI was much less of an underdog to Michigan State than was Purdue to Duke.) Thanks to Purdue's pressure man-to-man, Duke couldn't find open looks. What points did come came mainly from offensive rebounds, where the Blue Devils dominated -- grabbing 44.4 percent of their misses compared to the Boilermakers' 17.9. Until the nine-minute mark in the second half, the game was close, JaJuan Johnson was keeping Purdue within reach, and anything looked poised to happen.

Then, well, Nolan Smith happened. Smith hit two quick shots, and after a pair of Johnson misses, Duke guard Jon Scheyer found Smith for an open 3 in transition that pushed the Duke lead to nine. The Blue Devils never looked back, and Purdue didn't have the horses to keep up.

Those looking to praise the merits of that oft-overused cliche -- "they just played with more heart" -- can find a pretty relevant piece of anecdotal evidence in Purdue. The Boilermakers were outsized from the outset. Johnson was the one player on the floor able to match up with Duke's front line, and one player is not enough to keep the likes of Kyle Singler, Brian Zoubek, Lance Thomas and the Plumlee brothers off the glass. For a while, though, this disadvantage didn't seem to matter. Purdue was Purdue -- forcing turnovers, playing aggressive, slap-happy defense out to 42 feet, getting points in transition. It almost looked plausible.

But after 30 minutes, the loss of Robbie Hummel was too much to overcome. But Purdue fans who feel existentially robbed of a potential Final Four berth can at least rest assured knowing their team didn't do the easy thing. It didn't give up. The Boilermakers played with, yes, heart. Lots of it. They should be proud.

In any case, that's the story of Friday's late games: pedigree. After two early wins from incursions unused to playing in the Elite Eight -- Tennessee and Baylor -- we got two of the tournament's most established, nationally known programs, led by two of the country's best, most famous coaches. Hey, we all like upsets. But sometimes a little pedigree is nice, too.