The Michigan State Spartans will have another tough test on Tuesday night as they play the Duke Blue Devils in the Champions Classic at Madison Square Garden. Michigan State is listed as the home team, but Mike Krzyzewski and the Blue Devils will be the favorites when the two teams tip off at 7 p.m. as part of ESPN winds down its 24 straight hours of televised basketball.
Tom Izzo and the Spartans are continuing a difficult opening stretch of games, following up last Friday's season-opening loss to the North Carolina Tar Heels with the game against another top-ten team in the country.
Draymond Green will need to continue to lead the Spartans if they want to stop themselves from consecutive losses to open the season as the senior forward scored 13 points and grabbed a career-high 18 rebounds to lead Michigan State in their game on the USS Carl Vinson. The Spartans are going to have to shoot quite a bit better, too, as the youngsters connected on just 22 of its 72 field goal attempts in the first game of the season.
As far as Duke is concerned, the storyline of the night will be Coach K attempting to break Bob Knight's record to become the winningest coach in Division I history. If that happens against the Spartans, it will more than likely be due to the Blue Devils balanced attack as all five starters -- Mason Plumlee and brother Miles Plumlee, Austin Rivers, Seth Curry and Andre Dawkins -- have legitimate hopes of being in the NBA at some point in their future.
For more on the game, be sure to check out a more in-depth preview over at The Only Colors.