The Land That Scoring Forgot: Illinois 42, MSU 41
by SpartanDan on Feb 2, 2012 10:34 PM CST
in Michigan State Spartans Basketball
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Apologies for the delay in getting a recap up; it's taken me this long to unclench my disgust muscles. When you shoot 24% from the floor (eFG 26.7% thanks to a couple of threes), even 50% offensive rebounding can't save you. The gory details, in handy four-factors-chart form:
Much was made, by the commentators (and some comments after the game by players), of the ball possibly being overinflated. I wouldn't be surprised at all, as there were an unusual number of rim-outs, shots left short (which would be expected if the ball was a little heavier than normal), and wild long rebounds. (And this wouldn't be the first ball anomaly in recent memory at Illinois, even: they played seven minutes against Oakland last year with a women's-size basketball. If I were the equipment manager there, I'd be updating my resume right now.) If so, however, Illinois had to deal with it as well (and they didn't deal with it particularly well either - their shooting was only slightly less abysmal than ours).
Player notes after the jump.
- Branden Dawson: the one bright spot on the night, with 12 points and 13 rebounds.
- Draymond Green: 5 points, 8 rebounds, 5 turnovers in very limited duty due to illness, foul trouble (including a T; given his history with Jim Burr (who T'd him up once last year) and the very public memo just sent out by the head of officiating to emphasize cracking down on complaints about calls, Tuesday night would probably have been a very good time not to do that), and a sprained knee which has him day-to-day (but optimistic).
- Brandon Wood: 3 points; also hampered by the flu.
- Keith Appling: 1 for 11 shooting, 4 points, 4 rebounds, 5 turnovers. A performance best forgotten, although he's hardly alone in that regard.
As hideous as all of that was (even Illinois fans would probably prefer to burn the tape, as long as they still get to count it on their resume come Bracket Day), a one-point road loss to a solid NCAA tournament-level team (albeit one that probably won't make the second weekend) with two key players limited by illness is not exactly cause for panic. A Big Ten title and a high seed in the NCAA tournament are still well within reach. Crashing the Dance still has us as the top 3 seed; meanwhile, the three teams ahead or tied with us in the loss column in conference all have to come to Breslin yet. The road has certainly gotten harder, but not impossible (I'll be running updated odds tomorrow; my gut says about 20-30%).
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My cheat sheet has three tiers now
+1 for road wins, -1 for home losses.
Legitimate B1G contenders:
+2 OSU
+2 MSU
+2 Wisconsin
+1 UM
Tournament probables:
+1 Purdue
0 Illinois
0 Indiana
0 Minnesota
Have-nots:
-1 Iowa
-2 Northwestern
-2 Nebraska
-3 PSU
The schedule does MSU no favors with no trip to PSU or Iowa. Of the contenders, UM has the easiest road schedule ahead, with games remaining at NW, Nebraska, and PSU.
Awh, crud.
I thought maybe if we didn’t recap this game, it wouldn’t exist.
"And how much are intangibles worth? 10%? 20%?" - kj@theonlycolors
Appling - 0 confidence
God he better start hitting shots, or this season is going down hill.
Wood just can’t cut it in the Big Ten. I won’t shed a tear once this year is over and I no longer have to watch that clueless scarred look on his face.
We need someone to step up and become a closer at the end of games. This is the one area that Lucas provided us with for 3 years when he had two working ankles, and as the year progresses I’m missing it more and more. Especially after the debacles at Mich and ILL. The dude was ice cold at the end of a tight game, and Appling needs to develop that if we are going to be great in the future.
In his defense
The coaching decisions haven’t been the best in these 3 losses either.
But this level of guard play simply won’t cut it.
Green or no Green, you can’t win with guards shooting 2 for 16 or whatever it was.
Freshman Keith Appling would’ve helped win the game, he was like 41% from 3.
I’ve long been worried about Keith and the blank expressions he wears on his face. Even when he’s playing well he never seems all that engaged in the game. Lucas was quiet and introverted but every now and then we’d get a snarl or a chest pound to let us know he was going for the kill.
I’ve yet to see that from Keith and Tuesday he looked rather unhappy.
Better buck up with little #3 in piss and blue coming to town.
"Long range from the baseline, Swish!"
Appling was the dagger earlier this season
He was money from the line late in games, and fearlessly attacked the hoop as well. Remember him icing the Wisconsin game? Or even the Lehigh game, they had a potent offense but Appling made sure it never got closer than about 7 late??
I’m not sure what’s happened to him, but it seems clear that his confidence is shot. Not to mention that Izzo has commented after a couple of recent games that his legs have been gone late game due to excessive PT.
Not sure what the problem is, but it has to get fixed quickly. Not only is he 10-36 in our 3 B1G losses, but he got abused by Trey Burke vs. MI on the other end of the floor. As a matter of fact, between his stat line of 5-12 shooting, 4 dimes but also 4 TOs in that game, plus what Burke did on offense, you could say that his play was the reason MSU lost, not the reason MSU was in it until the final shot.
"Wood just can't cut it in the Big Ten"
Disagree, and that kind of hyperbole is unwarranted. Wood is struggling right now, no doubt. But so is Appling. Thornton has cooled off a little bit from earlier in the season. Green struggled at times against UM, and while he was limited by fouls he wasn’t overly effective in limited time against Illinois.
Sometimes guys just don’t play that well. It’s not because they are completely overmatched at this level of play. You make it sound like Wood has no business being on the court in major college basketball.
Frankly, his statistics, and in my opinion the eye test at times would disagree. 15 points on 6-12 shooting against Duke. 16 points on 5-11 against Florida State (plus 5 assists). 13 points on 6-11 against Indiana. Those are 3 of our better wins. Yes he has struggled at times, especially of late. But this team is much better off having him around for a year than it would be otherwise, and I would wager that before the end of this season he is going to be a major contributor at least a few more times.
by trivialstuff16 on Feb 3, 2012 11:34 AM CST up reply actions 1 recs
correction Duke obviously wasn't a win.
Meant 3 of our better opponents.
by trivialstuff16 on Feb 3, 2012 11:35 AM CST up reply actions
Wood and Eye Test
He just doesn’t pass the eye test to me. If he hits a shot early he is okay, but if he misses early on he looks scarred to shoot the rest of the game.
I’m not sure about his TO ration, but he is not good with the ball in his hands and is good for 2-3 critical TO’s a game, and his Defense when locked in is average at best.
Maybe I’m taking to much out on him, but someone needs to start stepping up and hitting big shots because we look “SOFT” at the end of the tight games right now.
Maybe it was the scolding
Didn’t Wood catch a verbal beatdown from Coach Izzo in the Iowa game for either yelling at an Iowa player or being a little too excited about the Nix technical?
He hasn’t done much since that game.
Maybe he’s still scarred by it.
"Long range from the baseline, Swish!"
I'd believe the overinflation hypothesis
because I’d wager that there hasn’t been another game in recent NCAA history where both teams have shot as abysmally as they did in Champaign Tuesday night. Nights like that just don’t happen, even when teams are good defensively. Even the best defensive teams, playing at home against an overwhelmed opponent, generally would consider holding said opponent to 37% eFG rate as a good defensive night, much less 24%.
I’m not sure what to take from this game – I know players play well sick sometimes, but I would not have expected a win at Illinois with Green and Wood out sick, so I guess I’m not that surprised by the outcome given the health issues. The really tough part is the Green injury. I’d like us in the rematch against UM at home, but if Green can’t go, or is significantly hampered by his knee, winning that game becomes more of a 50/50 proposition. It is really frustrating to come out 1 point short in two road games. Pulling out this one, or the one in Ann Arbor, would have really been nice.
There had to be an issue with the ball
Primarily that it wouldn’t go in the rim.
Coach Izzo said something on his radio show that Bruce Weber called and said his players were complaining about that too.
I think Dakich said something on the air about it too but I don’t listen to him so I can’t confirm that.
"Long range from the baseline, Swish!"
Dakich did mention it more than once during the game
(FWIW, long after it was brought up in the game thread here). Unfortunately, it’s too late to look for other comments about it on the Twitter, but it stands to reason that if people on here noticed, that both coaches commented about it, and the broadcasters did too, it’s likely that the ball was overinflated.
Which I just don’t get. Don’t they have multiple balls at the ready in case of damage, etc? Aren’t there any pressure gauges in Assembly Hall that the officials could have plugged into the ball to measure the psi? Being overinflated absolutely would contribute to poor shooting numbers, especially on offensive rebound putbacks that hit glass and/or rim.
Dakich...
actually said in the halftime cast that he did check the ball with a gauge and it was over inflated. He seemed serious when discussing this but who knows.
That's incredible
(I was at a bar & they had the sound off during breaks so I didn’t hear that, but I believe you).
Was it fixed? And how does that happen, anyway?? I would think that, as a matter of course, the ball’s PSI would be checked by the refs right before the game starts. It literally only would take a few seconds. Plus, all the players and refs have been handling basketballs all their lives, and should be able to tell right away by feel if it’s overinflated.
It just boggles my mind that such an egregious error can happen.
The coaches did tell the refs it was overinflated..
they apparently didn’t care. Same thing happened when Illinois played 10+ minutes with a woman’s ball.
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