MSU beats down Iowa 71-56 in a 62-possession game (a regular track meet by Hawkeye standards). StatSheet box score.
This one played out according to plan–MSU’s plan, that is. We dominated on the boards (although that edge faded some in the second half), forced Iowa to take a lot of tough 3-point shots (8/26=30.8%), and manged to push the tempo against a tempo-less team (14 fast break points). There were some early turnover issues, but most of them came from playing aggressively, rather than mental errors. And Iowa actually ended up turning the ball over one more time than we did. Your bar graph:
Other than a very brief stretch at about the 7-minute mark of the second half when they allowed Iowa to squeeze the lead down to 9, MSU played arguably its most complete game of the Big Ten season tonight. They systematically built a 20-point lead over the game’s first 25 minutes, never allowing Iowa to feel like they had a real shot at winning.
Player bullets:
- What more can you say about Kalin Lucas? 24 points on 13 FG attempts. His spectacular finishes in the lane are starting to seem a bit mundane at this point.
- Durrell Summers is emerging as a mini-MoPete (and could take on MoPete’s old six man role once Morgan is back to full health). 21 points on 9 FG attempts. Three turnovers, but you can live with that when he’s as involved in the offense as he has been the last two games.
- A Sutonesque performance by Goran Suton: 6 points, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals.
- We expected Delvon Roe to get some chances around the rim today. Unfortunately, he couldn’t put those chances to good use. He scored only 1 point and turned the ball over 3 times. 10 rebounds in 20 minutes, though.
- Chris Allen still looked out of sorts (2 turnovers and 4 fouls in 13 minutes), but he did knock down 2 of 3 three-point attempts, so there may be hope.
- Only 2 points in 8 minutes for Raymar Morgan. If this virus continues to linger, I wonder if they shouldn’t just shut him down until it’s gone.
- A combined 6 assists and zero turnovers for Travis Walton and Korie Lucious. That’s all we really need from those two on offense.
- Draymond Green played 9 minutes; Marquise Gray played 7. Green was better tonight against the small Iowa lineup, scoring 4 points off 2 offensive boards.
Defensively, the team played cohesively, switching well on ball screens and recovering quickly on the back side. Izzo put Suton, rather than Roe, on the fourth Hawkeye perimeter player, allowing Roe to play more at home against the lone Iowa big man in the paint.
At 5-0, we’re now guaranteed a winning conference road record. And we’ve exceeded our total number of conference road wins over the previous two seasons. Can’t beat that with a stick.
Next up: A Sunday game against Penn State (noon, BTN) to open a three-game home stretch.
I didn’t see the game (stupid class) . . . but when I saw the stat line, I thought the _exact_ same thing about Durrell. These past two games could have gone very badly without Raymar, but Summers has filled in a lot of that production loss by stepping it up in a way I’m not sure any of us could have totally foreseen.
OT, but Minnesota tonight = wow.
Also, I love Rexrode’s post tonight about Travis Walton: http://noise.typepad.com/hey_joe/2009/01/a-nod-to-travis-walton.html
I also missed the game. Good to know we didn’t have the usual brickfest going at Iowa – apparently the Carver-Hawkeye mojo moved north for the night (36 points, Illinois? Seriously?).
What happened to the offensive rebounding? Only the second time we’ve failed to break 40% in Big Ten play.
Heh.. MSU’s offensive rebounding was absolutely ridiculous in the first half. Possibly their most dominating half of rebounding. In the 2nd half Izzo started doing things like going with a line-up of Ibok and Green – which hurt their rebounding efforts. That – and once they got a 20 point lead they kind of let up.
Great piece by Rexrode, Ben. Walton’s been playing exactly the role we need him to. Last 6 games:
18-35 FG shooting
19 assists vs. 7 turnovers
9 steals
And Rexrode didn’t even mention what he did to McCamey (0-9) and Moore (3-11).
read the Roxrode piece, loved it!
my take on it was that for 3 years I have been comparing Walton to Charlie Bell; great D, strong on Offense. I’ve realized Travis isn’t Charlie, so I need to appreciate him for who he is, not who we wish he was.
Also, I think that Draymond Green is beginning to remind me of Big Al. While not as big and rugged, but he might be able to play a similar role in the program that our favorite foul-a-minute big guy.
Wow, that’s two recent games where we’ve won the turnover battle – that’s a trend I could get used to, although Iowa is even worse than us when it comes to turnovers so I guess in their case this was somewhat expected.
Summers has been a revelation. I think he should take most of Morgan’s minutes until he is back at full strength (he played starter minutes tonight anyway). Allen just looks frustrated – seems like the shooting slump is getting into his head and I think he’s letting affect the rest of his game. Great to see him hit 2 of 3. If he can find his stroke a perimeter of him, Summers and Lucas would be devestating on offense. Lucas is really coming into his own.
Walton has been consistently good at taking (and making) the shots the other team is giving him. His turnover rate is still a little high but as long as he continues to provide lockdown D, which is pretty much a given, and gives us some scoring punch the turnovers are acceptable.
I loved what Raftery and O’Brien were saying about the team’s practice – that they seem to enjoy playing with one another and have good chemistry. That’s a valuable intangible to have IMO.
[...] Iowa Game Recap (1/29/08) MSU has exceeded their total number of road wins for the past two seasons [...]
Your Friday night entertainment.
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2009/01/30/psu_confident_heading_into_sho.aspx
[...] our 15-point win over Iowa on the road, the Hawkeyes have lost 4 of 6 games and now stand at 4-10 in conference play. They [...]