| Game 5: Charleston Southern (1-3) at No. 3 Michigan State (2-1) |
East Lansing, Mich. – Charleston Southern men's basketball concludes their 48-hour trip to the Midwest Monday night as they take on No. 3 Michigan State from the Breslin Center.
CSU's date with the Spartans on Big Monday can be seen on the Big Ten Network and marks the third time the Bucs have played in the state of Michigan in program history.
Dontrell Shuler is coming off a career-best 24-point effort at Dayton as he sits at 20.0 points per contest this season – third in the Big South Conference. Preseason All-Big South guard
Phlandrous Fleming Jr. is averaging nearly a double-double through four contests and
Ty Jones is third in scoring and second in rebounds.
Monday also marks the first time CSU will play a team fresh off a Final Four run, doing so back in the 2007-08 season when Florida was coming off back-to-back National Championships.
For Openers
- Charleston Southern heads to No. 3 Michigan State just 48 hours after taking on Dayton from the A-10 Saturday night to kick off their Maui on the Mainland games. The Buccaneers will also head to Johnson City, Tenn. next weekend for a pair of neutral site affairs with Southern Utah and either Delaware State or ETSU depending on Saturday's results.
- CSU takes part in Big Monday against the No. 3 Spartans, the highest ranked opponent Charleston Southern has faced in program history. The Bucs have played six other current Big Ten schools in program history with their 2009 meeting versus Maryland coming when the Terrapins were in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
- Monday also marks just the second time in as many seasons taking on a ranked opponent on the road as the Bucs fell 77-68 in December 2018 at then-No. 23 Furman in Greenville, S.C.
- Monday's matchup in East Lansing also ends a three-game stretch in which the Bucs play three of the top-75 teams in the country in Furman, Dayton and Michigan State, according to the 2019-20 KenPom rankings. Missouri, who sits among the top-40 of those rankings, also looms on the Buccaneer schedule in early December.
- The trip to Michigan State is the first contest against a Big Ten school since the 2008 season when the Bucs played Iowa in the season opener. Charleston Southern plays just their third game in the state of Michigan Monday night taking on Michigan in the 2002-03 season and their lone NCAA Tournament game was played in Auburn Hills, Mich. when they battled No. 2 seed UCLA in the 1996-97 NCAA Tournament First Round.
Scouting The Spartans
- Led by Preseason All-American Cassius Winston, Michigan State was tabbed the Big Ten favorite and Preseason No. 1 team in the country.
- After falling to Kentucky in the Champions Tipoff Classic at Madison Square Garden, Michigan State has bounced back with a blowout home win over Binghamton and last-minute comeback over No. 12 Seton Hall on the road.
- Winston paces the Spartan offense averaging 19.7 ppg while Aaron Henry adds 11.3 as the lone two Michigan State players averaging double figures.
- Xavier Tillman averages a near double-double scoring 9.0 points per game and cleaning up on the boards with 9.3 rebounds a contest.
- Tillman, Henry and Marcus Bingham Jr. have been the shot blockers this season accounting for 11 of the Spartans' 12 through three contests.
- Tom Izzo's Spartans have been known for their tough defense and gritty style of play winning a National Title and heading to a number of Final Fours. Michigan State is one of the premier programs in college basketball producing NBA talents like Draymond Green of the Warriors and winning the Big Ten 13 times between the regular season and conference tournament.
Challenging November Slate
- Four of Charleston Southern's nonconference opponents sit inside the KenPom top-100 rankings headlined by No. 1 Michigan State.
- Of the four top-100 teams CSU plays, three come in a three-game stretch between Nov. 12 and Nov. 18.
- CSU begins that daunting stretch with Furman (98) at home followed by a trip to Dayton (56) Nov. 16 and a visit to East Lansing for the preseason No.1 team in America, Michigan State (1) just 48 hours later on Nov. 18.
- Missouri (38) also looms on the Buccaneer schedule to open the December slate while Southern Utah (207), James Madison (223) and Eastern Kentucky (260) all sit within 40 spots of the Bucs in the KenPom rankings.
March Madness Taste
- In one road trip, Charleston Southern will get to play in Dayton, Ohio and East Lansing, Mich. - the homes of two NCAA mainstays. On Nov. 16, the Bucs will take on the Dayton Flyers in UD Arena, the site of the NCAA First Four Round, the first four games of March Madness. The NCAA adopted the First Four model of the tournament prior to the 2010-11 season with Dayton as the designated host for the Opening Round, hosting four games across two nights.
- Two days later, CSU heads to East Lansing to take on one of the most storied programs in the country in Michigan State and head coach Tom Izzo. The Spartans enter 2019-20 fresh off another Final Four run and have high expectations once again as the Big Ten favorites and a preseason No. 1 ranking.
- The Nov. 18 matchup with the Spartans also makes it the second time under head coach Barclay Radebaugh that the Bucs take on a Final Four team from the prior season - the last time it happened the Bucs traveled to Gainesville, Fla. to take on the back-to-back champion Gators in 2007-08.
- Both Dayton and Michigan State will head to the 2019 Maui Invitational the following week as part of a loaded field. It will also be the first time CSU faces either program.
