Floppers Never Prosper - Michigan State 54, Wisconsin 47
by Pete Rossman on Jan 6, 2010 10:14 PM CST
in Michigan State Spartans Basketball
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PrintAs Michigan State fans, I believe most of us get nervous before Wisconsin games. They lull the opponents to sleep when they're on offense, and play voracious man-on-man defense (and let it be known Wisconsin - I respect you for playing straight man-on-man. At least you're not degenerates from Northwestern or Michigan who believe in the heathen 1-3-1 zone). For as good as Wisconsin's been offensively this season, this game was a classic MSU-UW battle - tenacious defenses, with the first team to 50 winning the game. Luckily today, this team was MSU, and the good guys prevailed with a 54-47 win.
Four factors graph and player breakdown after the jump.
As always, the four factors:
Michigan State needed to win the rebound battle, and win it they did. A 34.4% OR% is below MSU's average for the season, but against the top defensive rebounding team in the nation, that percentage is awesome. Also jaw-dropping: MSU's free throw rate was above 70%. I can't recall any team ever having a rate that high.
Your three Spartan stars for tonight are:
- Chris Allen - 16 points, 6 rebounds, and went 2-2 on his threes. For the first time I can remember, Chris Allen was the main contributor in a Spartan win. He was the main Spartan aggressor on offense, and looked positively fearless. Let this be a sign of things to come.
- Draymond Green - 11 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists. Ho hum - another game, another great performance off the bench from Green. He looked a little sluggish in the first half, but reverted back to his typical Swiss Army Knife self in the second.
- Kalin Lucas - Bad shooting night (3-13 from the field), Bad night for A/T ratio (one assist to three turnovers), but performed well in the final four minutes, and made all four of his free throws on the night.
Honorable Mention: Durrell Summers (dreadful night offensively, but led the team with eight rebounds), Raymar Morgan (had a couple of key plays, even if his normally decent free throw shooting was lacking tonight), and Korie Lucious (didn't score, but had three assists to one turnover, and led the only fast break in the game).
Jon Leuer had a slow first half, but was as advertised in the second half for the Badgers. 21 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks is dang good for a big man. Without him, Wisconsin's a borderline NIT team, with him, they're a 5-6 seed. He needs to learn when not to foul, but he's got the perfect coach for that in Bo Ryan, and he's got an early spot on my All Big Ten team. None of the other Badgers shot over 40% from the field tonight, and here's a tip for Wisconsin in future games: pass more to Jason Bohannon. I cringe whenever he touches the ball, and that's a good thing for your team.
Enough about, the individuals, let's talk about the Spartans as a team. MSU held Wisconsin to 47 points on 59 possessions, and that's a defensive efficiency of 79.7 against the 11th ranked team in offense by Pomeroy. We've been waiting for a defensive performance to show us whether the Spartans were a Final Four team, and we saw it tonight. The switches were quick, the pressure was constant, and although they didn't force Wisconsin into an abnormal amount of turnovers (their TO% tonight was 16.9% compared to their season average of 16.2%), they held the Badgers to an EFG% of under 40%, and that'll win you games 9 times out of 10.
Well, I'm tired, so I'll leave the rest of you to discuss how awesome the result of the game was tonight, even if watching it occasionally made your eyes bleed. Next up are the Iowa Hawkeyes on Saturday, and despite their record so far, at least we know that they're REAL AMERICANS.
P.S. A thousand pardons for forgetting to mention the 850 Izzone Alumni in the house tonight, THEY WERE FANTASTIC. The chants were right on, their shot clock counts were befuddling, and their applause at any time the game was tied was spot on. I'm sure LVS will have a first-person account of how it was there tomorrow, but it sounded great on TV. In the words of Orson Swindle/Spencer Hall, +100 cocktails to all of you.
P.P.S - If you're wondering who was helping head up the Izzone alumni event (from The State News:)
“We didn’t really know what to expect. For a weekday game, we didn’t know how tough it would be for travel purposes but in the first 12 hours we sold 400 tickets,” SAF Young Alumni Coordinator and former MSU basketball player Tim Bograkos said. “At that point we knew we had something special going.”
Doesn't it make you feel a lot safer knowing that Bograkos is still involved?
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That Stanzi thing was hilarious.
Felt bad for him though, what are you supposed to say when Chris Myers sets you up like that? Myers is an idiot, I have no idea what he was trying to say.
I didn't feel bad for him at all
Ricky Stanzi, comic legend of our time? We all Stanzi threw that Rick Six (copyright BHGP) to make it close.
by Pete Rossman on Jan 6, 2010 10:22 PM CST up reply actions
Stick a "knew that"
between “Stanzi” and “threw”. Oops.
by Pete Rossman on Jan 6, 2010 11:05 PM CST up reply actions
Fox's....
…college football efforts are just amateurish in every way.
by witless chum on Jan 6, 2010 11:02 PM CST up reply actions
Not the highest FT rate ever, even in an MSU game
PSU ‘08. The “Fifty-@#$%ing-One Free Throws” game. They nearly broke 120 FTR. Don’t blame you for forgetting, I’ve tried to.
For that matter, we nearly broke 110 in the OU game at the Palace in December ’03.
Nope
No clue what you’re talking about. Also, my tears of pain taste delicious.
by Pete Rossman on Jan 6, 2010 10:36 PM CST up reply actions
Strange game
If you had told me that we played Wisconsin and turned the ball over 23% of the time, shot under 40% from the field and under 70% from the line, I would not have been thinking win. But unexpected dominance on the glass and truly inspiring defense did the trick. The D was quick, smart and intense. Great help and switches. The only total breakdown I recall was Bohannon’s back-door cut early in the first half. It was a refreshing sight and bodes well for the rest of the season.
Defense
In big games, it’s usually defense that determines the winner, and tonight was by far the best defensive effort of the year. Wisconsin, except for Leuer, was taking lots of forced shots with little time on the clock. How many air balls did they have?
I shared my frustration with Allen earlier in the year, but I must compliment him on his play of late. He has been a far more confident player, much more in control, and he was huge tonight.
Draymond Green may be the next player to have his jersey hung from the rafters. It is a joy to watch him play.
There is much to build on with this win.
Gotta disagree on the Oldzone
They were not bad or good. It was an avg go for them. The one thing holding them back was just a tad too many guests that were lost. at the reduced size it needed all its members ready to go.
I will say its much better then just going GA Library style.
I will default to LVS but that just what I saw
"There are no next times when you're competing for big things." - Tom Izzo
Go Spartans
Vintage Game
That game reminded me of the 1999 – 2000 games with Scansin, when they had a real coach. Great defense and good interior passing won the game. I agree that this was Chris Allen finest hour(s).
Someone needs to teach the oldzone the Hey U Suck cheer.
Defense and rebounding won the game
Kudos to Chris Allen, who had an excellent game offensively. Morgan and Green also played pretty well on that end. The entire team played great D. We held our own on the boards and then some. Also contributing – our free throw rate. Wisconsin has been uncharacteristically vulnerable there for the past couple of years. Our turnover rate (which really shouldn’t approach 24 percent against a team like Wisonsin that does not force turnovers) is really the only quibble.
Overall, I’m more optimistic about our ability to compete for a Big 10 title. We’ve got a convincing road win against a middle of the pack team and a home one against one of the other contenders. We need to tighten things up on the turnover front before we play Purdue though – they force turnovers at an alarming rate.
back court play
I was wrong to believe that MSU needed Nix to have a great game. But only because the wings played so well. Allen is finally shaping up to be the player we were all hoping for, while Summers was better than usual on defense and his 8 boards were huge. MSU’s back court was the big difference on rebounds.
I like that Roe is taking a bit more initiative on offense, and Morgan had a good game despite the limited offense — but I do think MSU will be a much more effective team with better play at the 5. Roe is just more effective at the 4, Morgan at the 3 while Green’s talents are wasted when he’s playing guys 5,6 inches taller under the basket. Izzo has been brilliant at disguising this weakness, but the team still really needs Nix to step up and give 10-15 quality minutes a game. I thought Sherman might be the guy earlier in the season, but it is clear he’s a year away from being able to handle big ten play.
On Wiscy: Lauer is the real deal. Much more athletic than I thought, good ball handler. Otherwise, their lack of athleticism was pretty striking. None of them can create their own shot off the dribble, with the exception of Lauer, and they basically depend on a defensive breakdown for their points. Defensively, they are great, though. Textbook on how to shut down space. I will be really curious to see how they handle Purdue on saturday.
Nix
I continue to like Nix when he’s in there, with the one obvious exception. He’s got good hands, doesn’t rush things or make stupid decisions, plays good D and has some nice post moves. If only. . .
BTW, although it wasn’t his best night, Hughes can create shots off the dribble. He kept them in the Duke game that way. Jordan Taylor looks pretty decent too.
by Con-T on Jan 7, 2010 1:56 PM CST via mobile up reply actions
Wish I could have made the trip
I still remember the shot clock count from the Purdue game a few years back getting featured on SportsCenter (I think that may have been the very first game where we started to switch off between counting early and counting late instead of always counting early, and it led to multiple shot clock violations).
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