ESPN Men's Basketball

It's important not to get too caught up in early-season college basketball results. Take my preseason national title pick, the Michigan State Spartans, as an example.

Sparty stumbled in their season opener, a 66-62 loss to Connecticut. But in college hoops, it isn't about where your team is now, but where your team is going. Finding out about your team early in the season is critical for a coach looking at the big picture, and few coaches understand that better than Michigan State's Tom Izzo.

Izzo knows that the road to success always features plenty of detours along the way, and he has navigated that road better than any coach in the country. Izzo has always been about the process and the journey. He isn't afraid to challenge his teams with a tough early-season schedule to find out their strengths and weaknesses. This approach has enabled him to not only win a national championship, but also lead six teams to the Final Four. His ability to identify the problem and set a new course would make a GPS jealous.

After watching the Michigan State-Connecticut game, I am still bullish on the Spartans. Izzo and his staff will break down the film and realize that a majority of the errors the team made are correctable ones that can be addressed in practice.

Here are five areas that I feel will be addressed in the weeks ahead (and in Tuesday night's Champions Classic matchup with Kansas), allowing the team to realize its potential as a legitimate national title contender:

To read Seth Greenberg's full article on Michigan State's title potential, you must be an ESPN Insider.