Memphis squeezes by Mississippi State, 77-74. The Tigers will take on our Spartans at 9:57 pm, Friday night.
Thanks to the the early blowout in the mandatory Packer/Nantz/UNC game, we got to see most of the Tigers-Bulldogs contest. Joey Dorsey led the way for the Tigers with 13 points on 6-8 shooting and 12 rebounds.
Memphis played to their statistical profile on offense (which we’ll take a closer look at later in the week):
- They maximize the number of shots they get by (1) not turning ball over (5 turnovers in roughly 67 possessions) and (2) rebounding the ball offensively (17 offensive rebounds in 41 opportunities, not counting team rebounds).
- They don’t shoot the ball that well from the perimeter. They hit of 6 of 16 three-point attempts, but reserve Willie Kemp accounted for 4 of those makes (and 5 of the attempts.) Their starters were a combined 1-9 from beyond the arc.
- They struggle at the free throw line: 15-32 (46.9%).
Mississippi State kept the Tigers offense in check for the most of the game with a 2-3 zone defense. It took the Tigers a while to figure out how to attack it. When they needed to in the closing minutes, though, they were able to break it down off the dribble and convert some tough shots.
The Bulldogs played with moxie on the offensive end. They hit enough 3-pointers (8-19) to keep it close and didn’t back down in attacking the hoop despite Memphis’ shot-blocking prowess (11 for team; 6 for Dorsey). In the end, Mississippi State just couldn’t keep up with Memphis’ firepower.
Looking ahead to Friday’s game, I think the positive for MSU is that Mississippi State showed the way to keep Memphis’ offense under control: force them to play from the perimeter. Izzo won’t be busting out the zone, but I suspect we’ll see the Spartan man-to-man defense sag a bit more to cut off driving lanes and try to force the Tigers to shoot from the outside.
The negative? Memphis is scarily athletic. Dorsey, at 6’9″ and 260 pounds, is a physical specimen. Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts are two very talented guards who can create their own shots. And the rest of the Memphis roster looked pretty darn tough.
Michigan State is used to being the bigger, more athletic team when they take the court. They’ll need to step up the mental intensity on both ends of the court to keep pace with the Tigers. Izzo has five days to get them ready to do that.
good early breakdown of Memphis, one other thing that stats can’t figure in, the game is in a dome, and I thought I heard they’re using a “Basketbowl” setup, i.e. put the court as far from any background as humanly possible. Given that Memphis doesn’t shoot well from outside anyway, maybe we play off them more, of course the downside being, we need Neitzel to be able to make an outside shot or two.
The good news, unless Memphis beats us by 15, their FT shooting should keep us in it (of course after Pitt yesterday and Penn St. earlier, our FT defense isn’t very good!!)
The bracket contest is off the front page, so I figured I’d post the update here instead. (Note that the last update did not include the Kansas win, for some reason.)
TMadison25 120 / 8 teams remaining
Kurt 117 / 10
Dr Huxtable 106 / 7
Devin 104 / 12
kj 103 / 5
spartanproducer 95 / 8
Dave 81 / 6
Dan 77 / 8
GBBound 76 / 9
NorthernSparty 67 / 5
wifeofaspartan 63 / 9
Hoopraker 63 / 9
Erik J 59 / 10
I would actually rather play Memphis than Mississippi State, so while it would have been nice to see the one seed being upset, I would rather play a team that fouls a lot and has a hard time making free throws (they’re under 60 percent) and is just looking to coast to the final four – than one who are playing with a ton of intangibles and that “cinderella” emotion.
So let’s get it on. Memphis, here we come. I mean. Houston.
Thanks, Dan. I’ll put up a blog post with the results, too.
This ‘hack-a-shaq’ approach that Miss. St. employed is kinda interesting. I’m curious how Izzo decides on approaching the game. Will he play overly aggressive defense down low? Or will he stick to the game plan? How is Gray doing with that toe injury? Will he play more than 5 minutes against Memphis?
One thing to remember about Memphis is that they are a great team, but played most of their season in a very weak conference. They played Tenn (a great team) and a few other good teams, but a lot of their schedule was spent feasting on bad competition. The sudden change in the level of competition in the NCAA’s, plus everyone else playing like their life depends on it (and not approaching the game as a forgone conclusion like many must have in the C-USA), can be a bad mix for teams like Memphis. I was hoping Bulldog MSU would lose handily so Spartan MSU could provide the shock this week. Now Memphis has survived a scare and will no doubt be reminded of all this during the week, so the Spartans element of surprise is gone.
I hope Izzo choses not too focus on the hack-a-Tiger strategy too much. It seems like Izzo is great at exploiting a particular weakness of a non-conference opponent, but sometimes the focus on that one weakness takes away from the other areas of the game. The treatment on Kevin Love on the UCLA game comes to mind. Also, the foul-shooting is a weakness State wouldn’t be that great at exploiting. The bigs have enough trouble staying out of foul trouble, and I’m not sure they can smarten up fast enough to learn how to manage using fouling as a strategy on top of this. Nightmare scenario here is Morgan with 3 fouls (1 hard + the mandatory 2 ticky-tack) with 6 minutes of game played. Still a bad scenario would be handing over fouling strategy responsibilities to Gray and Ibok. I’m guessing these guys are going to be needed plenty this game and wouldn’t like their serviceability expire withing 4-5 minutes of total game time because they resorted to fouling every time.
Aw, man, I’m so happy for a chance in the Sweet 16, though.
I know conventional wisdom says that Memphis fattened up on weak teams and that’s certainly true regarding their conference season, but their non-conference games weren’t entirely cupcakes. They played and beat eight teams that made the tourney in their non-conference:
Won at Oklahoma (6 seed) 63-53
Won at UConn (4 seed) 81-70
Won at home vs. Austin Peay (15 seed) 104-82
Won at home vs. USC (6 seed) 62-58
Won at home vs. Georgetown (2 seed) 85-71
Won at home vs. Arizona (10 seed) 76-63
Won at home vs. Siena (13 seed) 102-58
Lost at home to Tennessee (2 seed) 66-62
I think it’s fair to call the games against Siena (although they did win a tourney game), Austin Peay and Arizona as marginally tougher opponents than their conference games. However, they played some tough, well-coached teams also, and this strikes me a fairly difficult non-conference schedule.
All that said, Memphis is definitely beatable, and Izzo has a way of taking away a team’s strength and forcing other players to beat him. Memphis has a cast that is potentially deep enough to do some damage, but they aren’t unstoppable by any means.
I’m anticipating a close game the whole way, and we’ll see if Memphis can hit some pressure FT’s down the stretch. If the Tigers get out and pressure the ball (which they like to do), I am concerned about MSU turning it over.
Anyway, that’s my $0.02
Yes, the non-conference schedule was decent, but the bulk of the season was played against weak opponents, certainly since the UT game that was a whole month ago. In any case, whatever element of surprise State would have had on its side is gone now that Memphis already had to survive a scare to shake them straight. I think Memphis is a great team.
They’re definitely a great team–see the post I just put up for more evidence.
MSU has shown they can play with anyone in the country, but no one should think we’re playing anything less than one of the top four teams in the country.