This game features two players from last year's McDonald's All American game: FSU's Dwayne Bacon and Mississippi State's Malik Newman
Like Leonard Hamilton, Mississippi State head coach Ben Howland has coached some of the best defenses of his generation. At Pitt, and then at UCLA, he routinely had defenses ranked in the top-5 nationally.
They both teach man-to-man. Howland, bless his coaching soul, stated in his opening presser at MSU that "god forbid we have to play any zone."
In terms of dead front deny man-to-man defensive coaches, Ham and Howland are two of the best.