Day-After Rant
kj on Feb 29th 2008
I held off posting these comments last night, but have decided they’re worth sharing.
I’m concerned about Izzo’s approach to this team at the moment. Consider the following from last night’s broadcast:
Musberger and Lavin indicated Izzo’s been praising the team’s play publicly but chastising them privately.
Erin Andrews reported Izzo was not at all pleased with [...]
Wisconsin Game Recap (2/28/08)
kj on Feb 28th 2008
Wisconsin dismantles Michigan State, 57-42. Unofficial box score here.
It’s almost as if Ken Pomeroy drew up the defensive game plan for Wisconsin. They refused to give MSU any clean looks from 3-point range all game. They had only a handful of breakdowns leading to easy MSU looks around the basket. They [...]
Pregame Reading
kj on Feb 28th 2008
Kalin Lucas missed practice Tuesday with a stomach virus, but is good to go tonight.
Basketball graph of the year: Ken Pomeroy looks at shooting percentages by distance from the hoop based on national data. Remarkably, the data indicate shooting percentages are actually higher for shots just beyond the 3-point line than for shots between [...]
Wisconsin Game Preview
kj on Feb 27th 2008
Wednesday Night Links
Grant Wahl says Michigan State is one of the top 16 college basketball programs in the nation–placing them in the second tier behind the sextet of Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA, and IU.
Tom Izzo says the Big Ten Network has been a “PR nightmare.”
“We have so many things right now that we’re trying [...]
Depth and the Conference Tournament
kj on Feb 26th 2008
In light of the speculation in the last two posts that Izzo may be ramping up to use MSU’s depth to make a run at the Big Ten Tournament championship, I thought I’d check to see whether past tournament champions have had unusual amounts of depth. In theory, having more players playing significant minutes [...]
Rankings Update and Introducing . . . Coffee Talk
kj on Feb 25th 2008
Rankings Update
In the AP poll, Michigan State held steady at #19 following the two home wins this week. Notre Dame and Vanderbilt leapfrogged us. The three teams are bunched within 5 voting points, though, so no major injustice has been perpetrated against us.
In the coaches’ poll, meanwhile, MSU moved up two spots from [...]
Around the Big Ten
kj on Feb 24th 2008
Michigan 49 Illinois 43
I can only hope this week’s results will boost MSU well above the Illini in the offensive points-per-possession category for good; the two were tied at 1.01 (in conference play) before this week’s action. UMHoops says rebounding was a key and recaps Jalen Rose’s comments to the Crisler crowd. [...]
