Spartans Weblog

It’s the Spartans versus the Spartans (sort of like Ditka vs. Mini-Ditka?). MSU hosts San Jose State Wednesday night at 8:00. The game is on the Big Ten Network. The LSJ says Chris Allen will miss the game due to the bone bruise in his foot and is “questionable” for Saturday’s game vs. Texas.

San Jose State comes in at 3-4. They’ve lost their last three games–to San Diego, Santa Clara, and Northern Arizona. They’re coming off a bad season last year, when they finished 5-25 (4-12 in the Western Athletic Conference).

San Jose State’s tempo-free profile says the following about them:

• They’re not scoring the ball well–shooting 43.9% on 2-pointers and 34.0% on 3-pointers.
• They don’t take many 3-pointers. Only 25.7% of their FGA are 3-pointers, 324th in the nation.
• They haven’t given up many offensive rebounds. Their opponents’ offensive rebounding percentage is only 28.8%.
• They don’t create a lot of turnovers. Their opponents have only turned it over on 19.4% of possessions.

As might be expected from the numbers above, not a lot jumps off the San Jose State individual stat sheet:

• Their most frequent 3-point shooter is Junior forward Tim Pierce, who’s made 16 of 45 attempts (35.6%).
• Freshman guard Justin Graham–here mentioned in the same breath as Pistol Pete (note the scribe’s prefacing of the article with “Not to get carried away . . .” before he proceeds to . . . get carried away)–is the team’s most efficient scorer. He’s shooting 51.0% on 2-pointers and 44.4% on 3-pointers (on just 9 attempts).
• Senior point guard Jamon Hill is the only regular with a (barely) positive assist-to-turnover ratio: 15 to 14.

MSU last played San Jose State in 1989, beating them 88-61. Three-point ace Kirk Manns scored 21 points for MSU.

The Sagarin Ratings like MSU by 27 points in this one.

While we’re eyeballing the data at kenpom.com, a couple notes on MSU’s current tempo-free stats:

• Still #1 in the nation in offensive rebounding percentage at 47.0%, led by Suton’s 17.5% OR% (15th in the nation).
• Offensive turnover percentage has dropped to a more run-of-the-mill: 22.2% (good to be moving toward run-of-the-mill in this case).
• Our opponents are taking a lot more 3-pointers than we are: 39.5% of FGA vs. 22.7%.

MORNING UPDATE: We have ourselves a real live tempo-free stat sighting in the mainstream media!  Kudos to Mr. Dye.

Not only is Michigan State getting the offensive rebound on 47.6 percent of its missed shots, but the Spartans also have made more free throws (174) than their opponents have attempted (169).