Takin' Care of Business: MSU 77, Penn State 57
by SpartanDan on Feb 9, 2012 8:18 PM CST
in Michigan State Spartans Basketball
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Three phases to this one:
1) Defensive dominance in the first 23 minutes leads to a 46-24 lead for MSU, and the only question appeared to be how long before the Human Victory Cigars (Anthony Ianni and the rest of the walk-on brigade) would make their appearance.
2) Absolute panic from fans as Penn State went on a 23-6 run to cut that seemingly insurmountable lead to just five with 9:18 to go.
3) MSU answers with a 23-5 run of its own (featuring three and-ones and a pair of three-pointers) to put it back out of reach with three minutes to go.
The result? Possibly the most nerve-wracking 20-point win ever.
The four-factors graph:
As usual, rebounding was a huge advantage, getting nearly half of our own misses back while holding Penn State under 20%. The other key factor: Penn State fouled. A lot. We took 34 shots from the charity stripe, our highest number in conference play on the year. (Free throw shooting left a little to be desired, however - only 23 of those went in.)
Player notes:
- Draymond Green was up to his usual stat-sheet-stuffing ways: 23 points, 12 rebounds, 5 assists, and a steal. One sour note: 5 missed free throws (9-14), including two when the game was at its closest in the second half.
- Branden Dawson is on a roll (earning a shout-out from CBSSports.com as a potential Freshman of the Year dark-horse): 12 points, 7 boards, 3 steals, 2 blocks.
- Adreian Payne (12 points, 5 boards, 2 steals) and Keith Appling (10-4-7 with a steal as well) also got to double figures.
- Derrick Nix was limited to just two points and had two turnovers as well. He had more difficulty than usual dealing with double-teams inside, particularly during Penn State's run.
- Two near-trillions (for those unfamiliar with the concept, it's an appearance in which you record absolutely no stats except for minutes, so the box score has one or two minutes followed by a bunch of zeros - Mark Titus, former walk-on for Ohio State and now writer at Grantland (warning: the article linked contains mention of the game that absolutely did not take place last Tuesday)
may have coined the term(edit: as MSUDersh points out in the comments, the term goes back quite a bit further) popularized the term among college basketball bloggers, although it was apparently in use in the NBA well before): Ianni went two minutes recording only a turnover, and Brandan Kearney nearly pulled an incredibly rare eight-trillion: 8 minutes, 1 foul, nothing else.
Next up: a trip to Ohio State (Saturday at 6:00 ET). Win that and we set up a likely winner-take-all (or at least "one team can win outright, the other can force a tie") finale three weeks later (not to mention establishing further separation from Wisconsin and Michigan); lose and we will have to win out and hope for a little help.
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Nice review
And I agree, this was the most nerve-wrackingest 20 pt win ever.
Dawson has been a stud as of late. He’s getting noticeably better on D every night, and is simply a man on the offensove boards. We are really starting to see why he was a consensus All American in HS.
I really hope Nix gets his game back saturday. When he’s hitting his shots (and he should be, they are all from within 4 feet), he’s nearly unstoppable. He’ll never get any rebounds that don’t go right to him, but its ok, we have Green & Dawson for that, even Appling & Wood can rebound. But Nix being on could be the difference Saturday.
Love the trillion, but it actually goes back a lot further than a Bill Simmons guy: http://basketbawful.blogspot.com/2007/07/word-of-day-one-trillion.html
Being a 13 year old die hard Pistons fan during the Bad Boy era (my Bar Mitzvah theme was hoops, and the party favors were basketball cards, with an autographed poster of Mahorn & Laimbeer in black leather with a deflated ball & Mahorn cheing a net for the limbo winner), as soon as I saw your note about that, I said to myself, “Scott Hastings came up with that.” But I have no idea how 22 years later I could remember that.
by MSUDersh on Feb 9, 2012 8:32 PM CST via mobile reply actions
Speaking of All-Americans
Congrats to Gary Harris, McDonald’s All-American. MSU will have three McD’s All-Americans on the roster next year: Harris, Dawson, and Appling.
by njd on Feb 9, 2012 9:10 PM CST up reply actions
Didn't know about that.
Will edit.
I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left-hand side.
Bradley-Terry rankings for college football and basketball: because there aren't enough computer rankings already.
Can we give Titus.....
….props for spelling it “trillin” in his Buckeye days?
by witless chum on Feb 10, 2012 6:00 AM CST up reply actions
Pretty similar, yeah.
A bit different in the details (we peaked a little earlier (18-point lead 15 minutes in), Indiana’s run was a little bigger (they actually got ahead by 9 points)), but the general pattern was very similar: explosive start, fall asleep for a while, then a huge finish.
I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left-hand side.
Bradley-Terry rankings for college football and basketball: because there aren't enough computer rankings already.
Banana in tailpipe avoided
This was the trap of all traps, emotional letdown after exterminating rodents and a trip to Value City coming up. Just be glad to win and move on to what the players were already thinking about anyway.
I wonder if Coach Izzo is campaigning to get Green on the All-America team or whatever other player of the year awards there are. He’s really concerned about players missing shots and costing Green assists in the last 2 games.
It would be beneficial to at least increase the layup completion percentage.
"Long range from the baseline, Swish!"
#23 in the rafters
Izzo clearly cares about this, but I wonder how much campaigning can really be done. What I find interesting is that Green has started to push his way into the conversation for jersey retirement based on his stats alone (he will – barring injury – be the first 1,000 point/1,000 rebound/100 block player in MSU history), but he lacks the individual accolades right now to really stack up against the other retired numbers. If he could win BTPOY (realistic chance if he plays well down the stretch) or make 1st/2nd team All-American AND we do something special as a team… a very interesting debate.
"It was worth it. Every needle, every dose of medicine that I've taken. That's why you play the game. A chance to be on a Final Four team, a chance to win championships." Delvon Roe
by Ducking Delvon on Feb 10, 2012 8:16 AM CST up reply actions
If we do well in the tourney
I would argue Green deserves his jersey to be retired before Kalin Lucas does. He was also a huge part of those Final Four runs and imagine if we have another run…
FWIW
KenPom never had us below 95% to win the game.
http://kenpom.com/winprob.php?g=4031
As for the “trap game” meme, I really don’t buy that the MSU players were focused on PSU for 25 minutes and then suddenly started thinking about OSU during game play 5 minutes into the second half. A sloppy-but-ultimately-decisive win. No more, no less.
by KJ@theonlycolors on Feb 10, 2012 8:58 AM CST reply actions
I agree, trap is cra...nevermind.
For two reasons:
1. I agree that focus and motivation are huge factors as there really isn’t a ton of seperation between teams, but the issues isn’t focusing on UM or OSU, it’s staying focused during a game when you’re up by 20. We play PSU enough to generally know what they’re gonna bring, it’s not like we’re practicing for a scheme we’ve never seen before.
2. Izzo is constantly coaching and trying to get other players minutes. The reason there were a few trillions in this game is because 12 guys played. Depth is always big for us, and if Byrd, Kearney, Trice and others are going to grow into the players we hope they will be, they need to play. It also doesn’t hurt to reduce a little wear and tear on the starters who will play a lot of games and minutes if we do well in the BT and NCAA tournaments.
Don't know if anyone cares but Robbie Hummel keeps creeping up on Draymond in Senior CLASS voting.
A little over a week ago Green had a 6% point lead, it’s down to less than 1%.
I think Purdue is putting a concentrated effort to win this vote…I guess Hummel winning it will somehow vindicate their program’s struggles…whereas Draymond by all accounts is the embodiment of this award (for example when Hummel was in the hospital after his second surgery – Green called him to check in).
Vote for Green:
http://www.seniorclassaward.com/vote/mens_basketball_2011-12/
I voted for Draymond, and asked my friends to do the same
But Robbie Hummel is a deserving candidate. Purdue has struggled a little this year (though is still a potential tourney team if they can find a couple signature wins). I don’t know if their program needs vindication, but in my opinion Hummel’s career certainly doesn’t need it.
by trivialstuff16 on Feb 10, 2012 11:25 AM CST up reply actions
Hummel is moving up at a very fast rate
He’s already closed the gap by 0.2% since I voted this morning, from 21%-20.1% to 20.8-20.1%.
Though if I wanted to be paranoid like so many of our Boilermaking friends down there, I would suggest that their science & engineering backgrounds give them a leg up in terms of voting “shenanigans” . . .
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