GRAHAM COUCH

Couch: Ben Carter's 6th year creates intriguing logjam for Spartans

Graham Couch
Lansing State Journal

Michigan State University's Ben Carter, top left, missed all of last season due to a knee injury. His mother was working at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino during the time of the shooting in Las Vegas on Oct. 1

Eighty minutes per game to be had. Six big men to split those minutes.

Imagine if Michigan State had also landed 6-foot-11 recruit Brandon McCoy. Nick Ward might have wound up at shooting guard next season.

Kidding, of course. But the logjam at power forward and center for MSU next winter is real, now that Ben Carter has been added to the mix. The NCAA granted the graduate transfer a sixth year of eligibility Monday. He missed all of last season — when MSU actually needed him — with a knee injury, after transferring from UNLV and after beginning his career at Oregon.

As problems go, this is not one — provided the scarcity of easy minutes doesn’t disrupt a several-year run of damn good team chemistry.

The Spartans have designs on competing for championships. Carter only helps them get there.

Most of us who follow or cover MSU have never seen Carter play. I remember seeing him on the floor at UNLV, when he averaged 8.6 points and 6.0 rebounds in 2015-16, but I didn’t know then that I should pay attention.

Here’s what his former coach at UNLV, Todd Simon, had to say about Carter Monday evening.

“Ben first and foremost is a very intelligent player and a basketball player that plays the game to win,” said Simon, who grew up in Fowler, just northwest of Lansing, and is now the head coach at Division I Southern Utah. “He can elevate the play around him because he knows where to go with the ball, (he understands) spacing and he plays extremely hard. He identifies what a coach is trying to do and he kind of plays like a coach on the floor from that position. And then he’s tough as nails, he’s a tough kid. He’s not afraid of contact. He’s a competitor, he’ll grit his teeth and throw his body around in there.”

Simon said they never asked the 6-9, 225-pound Carter to try to play out of position at small forward.

“He’s pretty skilled for his size and his position,” continued Simon, who also coached MSU big man Gavin Schilling in high school at Findlay Prep in Las Vegas. “He can put it on the deck and make a play for somebody.”

There’s no way those attributes are a detriment. MSU now has three centers (Ward, Schilling and incoming freshman Xavier Tillman) and three power forwards (incoming freshman Jaren Jackson Jr., Carter and Kenny Goins), with Schilling often capable of defending either position.

Foul trouble inside next season is an impossibility. The contrast between this coming season and last season couldn’t be more severe.

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The question is how it all plays out on the court. The power forward and small forward positions are very different in MSU’s offense, so it’s unlikely a young player like Jackson would see time on the wing, even if he showed he could defend the small forward position. Miles Bridges figures to play entirely on the wing — unless the Spartans struggle to defend a talented small-ball lineup.

So, again: Eighty minutes; six big men.

Ward is the best low-post scorer of this group. That’s his NBA skill. The rest of his skills weren’t as refined last season. Schilling is the quickest lateral defender of any big man Izzo has had since Andre Hutson. He, like Carter, missed last season with a knee injury. If Schilling had better hands and a 17-foot jump shot, he’d spend a decade in the NBA defending ball-screens. Tillman is a skilled and bruising big man, a good passer from the post. He’s probably too good to redshirt and, considering he might be MSU’s starting center in 2018-19, getting some playing time this year has worth.

At power forward, Jackson is a prized recruit, ranked in the top-10 nationally. He’s a rail, so he’s probably not a one-and-done kid, but he’s skilled, can dribble, pass, stretch the floor a little. He’ll play a lot. Goins is likely the odd man out with Carter getting a medical hardship waiver. But Goins has value defending stretch-forwards and he’ll be where he’s supposed to be defensively. He’ll be the guy Izzo plays when he’s ticked off at everyone else. And, a year from now as a senior, he’ll likely play a prominent role again.

Here’s my way-too-early, best-guess, likely off-base breakdown of minutes at power forward and center: Schilling 22, Ward 20, Jackson 17, Carter 13, Tillman 8, Goins taking someone’s minutes on certain nights.

It’s awesome depth. Carter is a surprise addition. He didn't miss two full years because of injury — which is historically the threshold for being granted a sixth year. His first knee injury came too late in the 2015-16 season at UNLV to count as a lost year. But a sixth year for him makes sense. He’s a grad transfer. So if the point is to encourage graduate degrees, this will allow him to achieve that, instead of heading to Europe to play basketball professionally.

Carter becomes a luxury for MSU, and makes the battle for minutes and the molding of a rotation even more intriguing.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.