4 Takeaways from Michigan State Basketball’s Fourth Night of Moneyball

For better or worse, Jaxon Kohler should be called “Mr. Moneyball” at this point.

This is Kohler’s third career Moneyball, and he seems to hit the ground running each time. In the past, it’s been to the point where fans thought he could be one of the best players on the team come the regular season.

We’ve obviously learned that’s not the case and we should lower our expectations based on the results of Moneyball, but that’s so hard to do when Kohler continues to put up these insane performances.

On Thursday, Kohler scored 41 points. He also made 7 of 9 free throws, which is also encouraging. Kohler didn’t sink threes like Zapala, but Michigan State doesn’t need every one of its big players to do that.

Overall, this was just another strong performance from Kohler. I know I just said we shouldn’t let Moneyball performances influence our expectations for guys in the regular season too much, but I think it’s fair to be more excited about Kohler than we were before. Especially after last season when he was injured for the first half of the year, it’s great to see him so dominant and fully recovered from that injury, something that never really felt right in the second half of last season.