Michigan State’s season is only one game old, but the Spartans are already moving straight into a different kind of test.
After rolling past Quinnipiac 96-59 on Monday, sixth-ranked MSU now turns around quickly for Thursday night’s matchup with Toledo at the Breslin Center. Tip-off is set for 8 p.m. ET, and the game will stream on Peacock.
Tom Izzo made it clear after the opener that the first win was just the beginning.
"We have 31 (games) left," Tom Izzo said after Monday's victory. "There's gonna be some ups and downs in those 31."
The Spartans are 1-0, but Toledo brings a much sharper profile than the Quinnipiac team MSU handled to start the year. The Rockets opened with a 71-70 loss at Arkansas State, a game that went down to the final seconds, and they were picked second in the MAC preseason poll behind Miami (OH), which ran through an undefeated 2025-26 regular season.
KenPom has Toledo at No. 141 nationally, a clear step up from Quinnipiac at 278th. Michigan State, meanwhile, is given a 98% chance to win.
Izzo said the Spartans will need a cleaner, stronger performance to get the job done.
"We'll have to play as good or better, I think, to win this game," Izzo said about the Rockets on Tuesday. "And I did not mind the team we played (Quinnipiac).
I mean, I thought they had some tough kids, but we made shots early, and that was the difference in the game. This team (Toledo) can make a lot of shots.
His (Toledo head coach Tod Kowalczyk's) scoring... he's always been in the 80s. So we'll have our hands full defensively, and hopefully we can do our job offensively."
That offensive identity has been a trademark of Kowalczyk’s teams for years. In 17 seasons at Toledo, the Rockets have ranked higher on offense than defense on KenPom in all but one year, including a 2022-23 team that reached fifth overall on the site while sitting 295th defensively.
Thursday also marks the second straight season MSU has hosted Toledo. The Spartans controlled last year’s meeting from the start, opening on a 20-6 run and finishing with a 92-69 win on Dec.
16, 2025. Sonny Wilson, who led Toledo with 29 points in that game, is now at South Florida.
This year’s Rockets have plenty of new faces, though. Toledo’s roster includes four players with experience at Marquette, DePaul, Providence and Ohio State. Rich Barron, the Providence transfer, was a teammate of Anton Bonke’s with the Friars during the 2024-25 season.
One of the names MSU will have to account for is Marquette transfer Sean Jones, who handed out nine assists in Toledo’s opener. Point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. will have a direct assignment there. The Rockets also got 18 points and four steals from two-guard Mynor Strong against Arkansas State, while Jaylan Ouwinga and Angel Montas Jr. each scored 16.
The quick turnaround is part of the challenge for Michigan State, and it’s one the Spartans will see often as the season goes on. This is the first of 13 two-day preps MSU will have this year, not counting possible zero-day turnarounds in the Big Ten Tournament or one-day prep windows in March Madness.
Izzo believes that kind of schedule work can pay off later.
"Our exhibition games, our games as they grow here, the two-day preps, all these things have been good," Izzo said. "Some of them (we) plan; some of them, they happen generically, but I think it's really good so these guys know what a turnaround it is. Now, they're not as tired as they're going to be in January or February, and yet, I think this is a great prep for us, to be honest."
Michigan State should also have Jesse McCulloch back on Thursday night. He sat out Monday with a "minor concussion," but Izzo said McCulloch was healthy enough that he "could have played" if the game had been on Tuesday.
That leaves one small lineup question: whether McCulloch or Bonke gets the start. Izzo has called McCulloch the team’s "most consistent" big, but Bonke made his case against Quinnipiac with a double-double.
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