Michigan Game Recap (1/27/08)
Posted by kj on Sunday, January 27th, 2008
MSU wins comfortably, 77-62. The final score was very close to the Kenpom prediction of 78-59.
The Spartans made Michigan pay for only having two reliable scoring options. Travis Walton hounded Manny Harris all game long. And, despite pickup up a number of fouls guarding him, Drew Naymick made sure DeShaun Sims never got going. Harris and Sims combined to shoot 5-21 from the field and score only 17 points. For much of the game, you hardly even noticed Harris was in the game. When he did start shooting, he was forced to take very difficult shots.
Michigan managed to keep the game close, and led briefly, in the first half on the backs of their supporting cast. Several Wolverines were hitting from beyond the arc, as they shot 6-13 from 3-point range as a team in the first 20 minutes. But their 3-point shooting touch disappeared in the second half, as they made just 2 of 18 attempts. This allowed MSU to pull away and lead by 15-20 points most of the second half, despite turning the ball over 16 times.
Some tidbits from the box score:
- MSU shot an astounding 71.4% on 2-point attempts (25-35). Kalin Lucas shot 6-9 from 2-point range and made all 6 of his free throw attempts to score 18 points.
- Good all-around game for Neitzel. He scored 18 points on just 13 FG attempts. He added 7 assists, with some great passes coming off screens where both defenders hedged toward him. And he hauled in 7 rebounds to boot.
- Surprised to see Walton had 8 assists. In terms of scoring the ball, he continues to struggle; he scored just 1 point today.
- The rebounding numbers don’t look good for MSU at first glance. UM had 17 offensive rebounds vs. MSU’s 7. But a part of that was the number of opportunities each team had. UM’s Off Reb % was 37.0% (17-46); MSU’s Off Reb % was 28.0% (7-25). So Michigan was better on the boards, but not that much better.
- I thought Michigan’s most impressive player might have been Zach Gibson. He scored 8 points and pulled down 5 rebounds in just 18 minutes of time. A couple of the baskets he scored were pretty athletic moves going toward the basket.
- 3 assists vs. zero turnovers for Suton. He has a 10-1 ratio in those stats over the last three games.
Today’s minor gripe: I think one downside of MSU always having two or three point guards on the floor is that sometimes none of them takes the initiative to dribble through pressure. Each knows there’s another ball-handler on the floor so they tend to pass off, which can lead to turnovers, rather than attacking the pressure with the dribble. Lucas, Walton, and Neitzel can all usually beat their man off the dribble in the open court and should do so more often to keep defenses honest.
MSU certainly didn’t play a perfect game today. Their intensity on offense didn’t seem quite as good as it was vs. Northwestern, with a few stretches of casual passing. But they did enough to make sure this game was never in question after halftime.
In other Big Ten action, both teams ahead of us in the conference standings lost on Saturday–although only one of the losses benefits us in the conference race. Purdue beat Wisconsin 60-56 in West Lafayette. E’Twaun Moore led Purdue with 16 points on 7-14 FG shooting. Purdue is now 6-1 in conference play and may be a factor in the Big Ten race down the stretch.
Meanwhile, Indiana dropped a nonconference match-up to UConn by the score of 68-63. Eric Gordon finally had one of those off nights I predicted he would–shooting just 5 for 16. Unfortunately, it didn’t come in a conference game.
I watched most of this game. Because we’re into conference play, my instinct was to root against IU. But the loss is probably actually a bad thing for us:
- Bad for the Big Ten’s image: Our top-ranked team losing at home to an unranked opponent on national TV.
- It might wake up IU a bit. From the games I’ve seen, they’ve been relying too much on one-on-one play on the offensive end. This loss might cause them to be more disciplined on offense, which would not be a good thing in terms of our chances of catching them for the Big Ten title.
All things considered, I’m feeling more upbeat about MSU’s place in the world than I was a week or two ago. We’re now one loss back of a single team ahead of us in the conference standings. IU and Wisconsin play each other this Thursday night in Madison, so one of them will pick up a loss in that game.
We need to take care of business at home against the Illini Wednesday night. 9:00. Big Ten Network.
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Filed in big ten, game recap, msu basketball
Freshon 27 Jan 2008 at 10:56 pm 1Great game analysis, and I love your blog. I am a Michigan fan (as painful as it is right now) and graduate, but I have some good friends on the MSU team, and love to read a great blog about basketball. I wish you would seriously consider taking over the void that John Gasaway left when he moved to basketball prospectus. We could use a new Big Ten Wonk. Once again great blog and analysis.
kjon 28 Jan 2008 at 8:24 am 2Thanks. There can never be another Big Ten Wonk. I certainly don’t know how he had the time and energy to cover the entire conference with such intensity. But I think the blogs I’ve linked to under “Big Ten Hoops Blogs” are starting to fill the void. There’s just no one-stop shopping site anymore.
TMadison25on 28 Jan 2008 at 8:29 am 3The Curse of the BTN! I’ve been able to see every single Spartan game this year going into yesterday’s game against U of M via Directv. As much as I wanted to watch the Wolverines get worked over, I could not get the game. I couldn’t get it at home so I went to three sports bars and none of them could get it. CBS must have played a regional game (I live in Raleigh, NC) instead. I was one extremely frustrated Spartan refreshing the ESPN Gamecast webpage.
I keep hoping that Izzo will get the team focused and more efficient as they get closer to tougher conference competition. After reading your analysis, it sounds like there is still work to do with the turnovers. Hopefully they won’t play as casual in closer games. It’s good to read the game analysis here.
bterpon 28 Jan 2008 at 10:17 am 4And the dominance continues against the wolverines! Except for that 3pt barrage by uofm in the first half, the outcome of this game was never in question. I loved the chant by the Izzone at the end of the game “little sister”. That was classic. There’s nothing like an added stomach punch after beating them down for 40 minutes.
Neitzel is back! It was only a matter of time until he got his rhythm back. His ability to draw 2 defenders coming off screens leads to some of the easiest baskets I’ve ever seen. And our bigs do an excellent job of hitting the screener as he slips to the hoop. It’s a thing of beauty.
A quick note about Naymick: When he came to MSU, who ever thought in their right mind that he would become our glue guy? The guy that holds down the paint and (gulp) D’s up the oppositions best big man? I mean, are you kidding me? It just goes to show what Izzo can do with a guy when he stays for 4 years, or in Naymick’s case, 10 years. (No, really, doesn’t it seem like he’s been here for at least that long?)
Wait…What? Was that a Marquise Gray sighting (rubbing my eyes)? I think it was! His 8 pts and 4 rebs in 14 minutes is something that could really help us down the stretch. Ufortunately, the 3 to’s he had in the 14 minutes would have been much more noticable and detrimental if the game had been closer.
I again was pleased with Kalin’s performance. I am amazed at his speed and quickness everytime i watch him play. And as I’ve said before, if we can get Allen playing at a higher level more consistently, we will be much more dangerous come march. If we can just rid him of these nagging injuries, i think he’ll get there.
I’m very excited for Wednesday night’s contest vs Illinois as I will be attending my first game of the year in person. It will be great to watch a game and not have to listen to those horrid BTN announcers for once.
Go State!
Spartalyticalon 28 Jan 2008 at 3:35 pm 5Big game by Travis in smothering Manny Harris. He was almost invisible in the first half. I love Walton’s emotion on the court and its affect on his team mates. And obviously great efforts by the other two guards. Neitzel seems much more comfortable shooting the ball and just looks quicker coming off his screens. Lucas has the ability to create plays and isn’t afraid to lower his shoulder and drive all the way to the basket, or stop and pop instead. With Neitzel graduating this year, I think our back court is in good hands with Kalin.
On the UM side, I was most impressed with Anthony Wright. He’s agile and has a great shot for a bigger guy. Beilein’s catching a lot of crap today in the Detroit papers (even more in the comments sections) for his unconventional offense and how it will never work in the BT. I think it can work, but it’s so different that it could take a little bit for a legitimate buy-in. All he needs are two or three sharp shooters and we could have been in trouble yesterday. He’ll have an uphill recruiting climb, but when he gets some players, this program could start to turn a wide corner.
Spartans Weblog » Breaking down the lineup possibilitieson 27 Jul 2008 at 5:39 pm 6[...] That’s a versatile lineup with a good combination of quickness and toughness. The problem is that as soon as you go to your bench, you’re looking at a multiple point guard lineup with either Walton or Lucious playing next to Lucas (assuming Dahlman won’t be a major contributor). This past season, my feeling was the multiple-point-guard lineups often contributed to the offense bogging down. [...]