EAST LANSING – Tom Izzo knows what a win over Michigan means to Michigan State’s football program.
He also knows what a Champions Classic victory does for the Spartans’ basketball team and fans. Be it Duke or Kentucky or Kansas, that win just feels different.
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“I’ve said all along that there’s memory-making moments in my job. And one of the biggest memory-making moments is when we started the [Champions Classic],” Izzo said Monday, Nov. 9. “And we got the chance now.”
No. 5 MSU faces No. 2 Duke in Chicago on Tuesday (7 p.m., ESPN). It is the 16th iteration of the annual event and the first time back at United Center since the Spartans lost there to the Blue Devils in the 2023 event, 74-65.
Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo shakes hands with Duke head coach Jon Scheyer after 66-60 loss at Breslin Center in East Lansing on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025.
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“I’m more excited to see how our team is and how we get better, how we improve, and just overall what we need to do and how we can keep getting better,” All-.American point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. said after MSU’s 91-61 win over Toledo on Thursday. “I think I look more at it as how can Michigan State basketball keep improving and getting better game by game.”
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MSU (2-0) defeated Kentucky last year in New York to improve to 6-9 in the four-team field that annually rotates opponents. However, the Spartans‘ lone winning record in the Champions Classic is against the Wildcats (3-2). They are just 1-4 against the Blue Devils, who are tied with the Jayhawks at 9-6 overall in the event.
“It’s been one of the highlights of the schedule every year just because of the teams that are playing, the fanfare it brings, the alums it brings – all the good things it brings,” Izzo said.
Izzo is 3-15 all-time against the Blue Devils, though he has yet to beat fifth-year coach Jon Scheyer in two tries. That includes a 66-60 loss at Breslin last season, and both teams have plenty of familiar faces back for this one – a rarity in the elite college hoops circles, between one-and-dones and the now-annual transfer portal roster remodeling.
“Obviously a ton of respect for coach Izzo and his program and the battles we’ve had throughout the years,” Scheyer told reporters Thursday after Duke’s 115-52 blowout of Coastal Carolina at home. “We know it’s gonna be a tough game, but it’s also what we signed up for. We want to be in moments in games like this.”
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The Blue Devils (2-0) opened with easy wins over Army (84-50) and the Chanticleers. Scheyer’s squad, however, won all three of its preseason games, beating Belmont and No. 9 Tennessee at home and then edging No. 14 Kansas on the road at Phog Allen Field House just before the start of the season.
“It’s part of the reason we played our exhibition schedule the way we did. We want to be tested in different ways,” Scheyer said. “There’s no question Michigan State is gonna test us in ways we haven’t seen yet.”
Michigan State guard Jeremy Fears Jr. (1) makes a layup against Duke guard Caleb Foster (1) during the second half at Breslin Center in East Lansing on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025.
Four of Duke’s top five scorers so far this season – 6-foot-11 Patrick Ngongba II (19 points per game), 6-8 Dame Sarr (14), 6-4 Cayden Boozer (10) and 6-5 Caleb Foster (9.5) – all played in last year’s game against MSU at Breslin Center. Their sixth-leading scorer also is incredibly familiar with the Spartans, 6-5 former Wisconsin star guard and Brother Rice standout John Blackwell (9). The lone newcomer, 7-2 freshman Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje, is averaging 12 points and six rebounds so far.
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Fears, who along with Coen Carr will play Duke for the third time, was part of the last two losses and got his big-game baptism in the 2023 meeting near his hometown. MSU has four others (Jordan Scott, Cam Ward, Kur Teng and Jesse McCulloch) who played in last year’s loss.
“We know they have a few new players, but it’s still the same name on the chest,” Scott said Thursday. “And we have to show them what we got.”
MSU is 4-16 all-time against Duke. The Spartans’ lone win over the Blue Devils in the Champions Classic came in 2020 at Cameron Indoor Stadium during the pandemic-altered season. That was a year after Cassius Winston and Kenny Goins slayed Zion Williamson and Duke in 2019 for Izzo’s eighth Final Four berth. Izzo’s only other win over fellow Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski came in the 2005 Sweet 16, en route to the MSU coach’s fourth Final Four.
“They’re gonna go on a run at some point. It’s gonna feel like the world is falling, but it could be a six-point run and they made three baskets,” Fears said. “[The crowd is] gonna get loud, they’re gonna have energy. And then you’re gonna go on a run. It’s just being able to control those runs.
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“Being level-headed the whole 40 minutes is the task of the game to make sure we go out and compete every possession.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State, Duke prepare for ‘memory-making’ Champions Classic
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
