- MSU’s Morgan hampered by illness
The virus that won’t die. - Did (N)U Know?
Lake the Posts: “The last time Michigan State lost to both North Carolina and Northwestern in the same season the Spartans won the national championship.” - Taking Time Out
Mark Titus on MSU’s roster of unusual first names (among other things). - Tale of the tape: Michigan State
Excellent Ed Hightower rant–from a beat writer, no less. - Iowa men’s basketball: Tate could play this week
He’s been out the last four games with a sprained ankle. - The Jigsaw Man fills in the missing pieces for NCAA contenders
We’re not on Seth Davis’ list. Hopefully, that means we don’t have a missing piece–as opposed to that we’re not a contender. - Time Out of Time in Madison
Hoopraker on tonight’s Purdue-Wisconsin match-up (9:00, ESPN). - Beanie Baby Badgers
Hoops Marinara breaks down Wisconsin’s deficiencies to date. - Stats!
Geeks have posted easily-digestible conference-only tempo-free numbers.
That’s all I’ve got tonight; Iowa game preview tomorrow night.
The UNC/NU stat is interesting. I was actually wondering a few days ago, wasn’t Northwestern the last loss MSU had in 1979?
Heh… the Club Trillion dude didn’t even realize that “Chris” Allen is really named Xavier.
For Spartalytical…our last loss in ’79 was to Wisconsin on a half court shot at the buzzer by Wes Mathews, father of Wes Mathews, Jr., of Marquette, in the final regular season game. Because the NCAA took only two from each conference that year and we were in a 3-way tie with Iowa and Purdue, it almost cost a tournament berth. I have no idea why Purdue was the odd-team out, other than maybe the NCAA didn’t want to have Just Barely Cares in the tournament. Three Big Ten teams went to the NIT and all three made it to the NIT final four in NYC. IU ended up winning that event. As to the Hightower article, I especially liked the writer’s description of the MSU fast break.
Major blow for Wisconsin tonight. They are reeling.
I love watching the badgers lose. 5 straight.. it warms my heart.
A two-game lead on Purdue would have been preferable. But the continuation of the Badgers’ losing streak is a decent consolation prize.
Naw – the way I see it MSU has two games left against Purdue. If they beat them – it won’t matter what Wisconsin did/didn’t do last night. If they don’t beat them and it costs them the big ten title – then apparently MSU doesn’t deserve to be crowned big ten champs anyways. So – last night’s loss by wisconsin was the preferable outcome
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At this point, I’m less concerned about winning the title honorably. I just want to win.
I want to win too, but it would be more enjoyable if we split with Purdue. I’m not so much worried about taking one from them as opening up a little more wiggle room so if we drop another like the NW game it doesn’t cost us a piece of the title.
Plain and simple: Conference W-L record… and I want to see MSU at the top of the standings come early March.
Re: Wisconsin…Is it possible that the Big Ten coaches have seen enough tape that the vaunted “Swing Offense” isn’t much of a puzzle anymore? Or is it a lack of players?
Well, their main issues are defensively; they actually rank second in the conference in points per possession on offense.
But I do think they’re lacking a player to create shots late in the shot clock after they’ve run their offense and nothing has materialized. Jordan Taylor showed flashes of being that guy in the final minutes last night, but couldn’t get enough shots to drop.
Still, they scored 64 points in a 56-possession game last night.
I think a lot of people (myself definitely included) hugely underestimated the things that Butch allowed Wisco to do for the past four years.
Something I wonder: Is a significant portion of the Big 10′s poor national rep a direct consequence of Hightower? He seems to work an inordinate number of big, national-telecast type games. If I was a college basketball fan in, say, Connecticut, and half of the B10 games I see in any year are hideously ugly Hightower affairs, I’m pretty down on the conference.
Wisconsin’s offense ranks about where it always does: somewhere in the 20s (three of the last six years, with another at #30 and a 5th at #13). The defense is the problem (top 15 four of the past six years, #82 now). I think they’re really missing Flowers.
I think the Big 10′s poor national rep is a direct consequence of Wisconsin. I’m only half-joking, but when that 2000 team made a Final 4 name for themselves by mucking the game up and slowing the tempo down to an almost unwatchable pace, people began to equate that with the Big 10 in general. It was compounded, probably unfairly, by MSU always defending so well, so people started to figure that Izzo prefers to play the same style.
This is just my theory, but my sense is that outsiders view the Big 10 as a a tough, physical league (which it is) that is perhaps short on talent and plays football-style basketball. In some sense, people might be transferring the B10′s football reputation into the basketball league.
As for the conference title, we absolutely better be 11-1 in the conference heading into the game at Purdue. If we’re not, I sense trouble.
Mark, Iowa needs some of the blame for that reputation too. There is no team more painful to watch (since the beginning of the 07-08 season, they have played 26 games in which the losing team didn’t reach 50).
There seems to be something weird about Carver-Hawkeye Arena, though – we always shoot poorly there. And it’s not necessarily that Iowa’s good defensively, because we usually put up huge numbers against them at Breslin.
Very true, Dan, but I picked Wisconsin because of that Final 4 run and their success in conference play since then.