This 9th man stuff is such a nothingburger to me. It blows my mind that it has consumed this much talk in here. I guess we need something to talk about since the remaining 99% of the offseason hit the best case scenario.
Field of 68 rankings also has MSU over Illinois. I don't see it. 2nd year in a row they are going to lose top players and not replace them. They do have a good freshman class, but Izzo isn't known for relying on freshman.
Why would Ugochukwu take that role? He is leaving MSU because they have good freshman guards coming in and he's going to move down the roster into the role you want him to take here.