Izzo over Crean 75-47 in a 69-possession game. StatSheet box score.
The mind of Ed Hightower is an enigma wrapped in a riddle.
Due to the generosity of a professional acquaintance, I sat in the second row behind the scorer’s table today. So I had an up-close view of the “nuts” incident. If you have the game on DVR/tape, go back to when Ed Hightower goes to the monitor to review the play. I’m the headless guy in the upper, left-hand corner of the screen with a white shirt on that says “Basketball” in the MSU jersey script.
Anyway, Hightower managed to look at the replay and conclude that there was nothing out of the ordinary to be observed, despite a national TV audience seeing a shot of the play that clearly showed Devon Dumes lowering his elbow and purposely going after Goran Suton’s unmentionables as they ran up the court. In fact, a few minutes later, the officials at the scorer’s table were replaying the incident for their own enlightenment, and–even from my seat two rows back–I could see what happened. So it’s not like Hightower didn’t have access to the right camera angle. His brain just processed what he saw differently than other people’s brains did. (Update: Per the comment section, our views about this particular replay incident–but not Ed Hightower generally–are currently under review.)
Bottom line: Ed Hightower’s standing with the Breslin faithful was lowered yet another notch. And Devon Dumes, who was working with a clean slate, has taken no time at all to place himself squarely on the most-wanted list. At least he was nice enough to take another cheap shot at a Spartan in the closing second of the game to get tagged with the ejection he so richly deserved.
On to the stats:
Despite only leading by 3 at the half a minute into the second half, MSU thoroughly dominated this game statistically. Indiana was unable to generate any consistent offense. You can’t ask for better defensive numbers than an eFG% of 34.5%, a TO% of 30.4%, and an OffReb% of 18.8%. MSU’s physical defense led to a few too many free throw opportunities for the Hoosiers, but that’s a small gripe. The only two IU players to get to double digits, Verdell Jones and Matt Roth, both did so by posting unimpressive 2-8 FG shooting lines.
The reason this game was fairly tight for the first 20 21 minutes was the MSU offense. The Spartan players looked tentative in the first half, almost as if they knew they could dominate IU in multiple ways but couldn’t quite decide how to do it. More concretely, they missed a number of open 3-point looks. For the game, Kalin Lucas and Durrell Summers missed all of the combined 11 shots they took from beyond the arc. If a few of those go down, MSU would have built a 20-point lead much more quickly than they did.
In the end, MSU got the 28-point blowout they were supposed to get. And they got two very good performances from a couple guys we might not have expected to play so well:
- Chris Allen scored 16 points on 4-6 three-point shooting. His shooting stroke appears to be back just in time to face the Wolverine 1-3-1 zone. And he had 3 assists to boot.
- Draymond Green had a career night, with 15 points and 12 rebounds against the undersized Hoosiers. I don’t think we can expect similar levels of output against teams with more bulk inside, but he definitely earned himself some more minutes over the next few games.
Lucas’ and Summers’ poor shooting is something of a concern, but both guys strike me as players that can shake off a bad performance pretty quickly. Despite playing limited minutes in most games up until the last couple weeks, Summers has not had two consecutive games without a 3-point make this season.
Any game in which you take 17 more shots from the field than your opponent does qualifies as a success in my book.
Next up: A trip to Ann Arbor next Tuesday night (7:00, ESPN) to play those rascally Wolverines.
P.S. I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble here, but I have to tell you that Tom Izzo’s sideline banter is definitely rated PG-13 R. And some of the advice he gives the players is more straightforward than you might think. After Delvon Roe missed two free throws, Izzo told him that next time he should “make the layup.”
Lastly, it was interesting to hear Marquise Gray give it right back to Izzo after Izzo yelled at him about a bad defensive sequence, with Gray telling the coach that he needed Roe to call out a switch. I have no idea who was right about the situation, but I’m glad Gray hasn’t allowed himself to get beaten down–despite the fact that his last shot at being a major contributor as a Spartan seems to have slipped away.
Didn’t MSU lead by 7 at the half, not three as you report above? Granted, I wasn’t in the second row; just listening on the radio in my garage as I attempted some household projects, but I seem to recall a 33-26 score at the half.
) BTW – how do I get some of those “professional acquaintances”?
On TV, the announcers said that the wide-angle shot that made it really obvious was not available on the monitor until a minute or two later (for what reason, I don’t know – maybe someone forgot they had that camera feed?), and all they had was a narrow shot that showed the contact but didn’t show Dumes’s stride. On the angle they initially showed, it was difficult to tell whether it was intentional or just swinging his arms while running.
They’ve been really inconsistent with the elbow calls this year – Krabbenhoft got away with a blatant one on a screen against Purdue, but Manny Harris got thrown out for one that was not much more serious than Dumes’s first one today (early in the game, the offensive foul he got while being guarded by Walton) except that he had the bad luck to catch Kramer right in the nose. I think part of the problem is the worst ones have happened away from the ball, where the refs aren’t paying attention.
It was 7 at the half, it just seems like 3 because Indiana had a quick 4-0 run at the start of the second half.
As for Hightower, his whole crew is… weird. This is the second game in a row where they’ve called MSU for charging when the defender is in mid air.
I don’t get what your “PG13″ post about Izzo is meant to imply…seems like very normal stuff to me.
Heath,
Since it often looks like Izzo is spitting hot fire, I think kj was saying that it’s PG-13 as opposed to R.
The wide angle excuse was fabricated B.S. I think. The game wasn’t shot with a wide-angle camera and on the SD feed they broadcasted to all of america you could clearly see he intentionally threw the elbow.
Hightower and his crew yesterday were just flat out terrible from start til finish. Continued the trend of trying to make themselves the focus of the game instead of the players and it made for some really boring basketball.
Boy, not my best game recap. My brain must have still been a little foggy from my near-Izzo experience.
1. Got the halftime lead wrong.
2. Thanks for the clarification on the replay angles, SpartanDan. That would make sense relative to my experience. MooTheKow may have a point, though. I’ll have to go back and watch the recording of the game again. When I watched it last night, it seemed like you could see the intentional swing right away when they stopped play–and the announcers seemed to be aware of it even before they played the replay.
3. The “PG-13″ comment was unrelated to the other tidbits. The PG-13 utterances are not fit to print on this here G-related blog.
KJ,
The announcers made a good point about how Delvon Roe brings the ball down to his knees before he goes up for the shot. This allows the defender plenty of time to foul and prevent the basket. Did you hear Izzo give any “PG-13″ material to Roe regarding that?
KJ,
Are you going to have to pay taxes on the professionally gifted seats?
Better check into it now – wouldn’t want it to derail any future high level cabinet appointments.
No, nothing on that topic, Chris (unless that’s what he meant by “make the layup”). But it’s a good point. Roe tends to wind up for the big dunk; he needs a lesson from Suton on how to make the less impressive looking but more effective quick layup.
I did note a couple PG-13* utterances from Roe after missing free throws, though. No one should think that the misses don’t bother him even more than they bother the rest of us.
*Can you say the f-bomb in a PG-13 movie? I think you can. If not, I should have said R-rated.
Donaldo: I’m already out of the running for a cabinet appointment due to the large housekeeping staff I don’t pay taxes on.
KJ, the rule is that usually in a PG-13 movie, you can drop the f-bomb once. Multiple utterances earn an “R” rating.
Also, that game was much more frustrating to watch than the score indicated. I just wish the NCAA would lower the shot clock to 30 seconds so teams wouldn’t pass and dribble around the perimeter to under 10 seconds.
Oskee-Wow-Wow, Illinois, our eyes are all on you!
Oskee-Wow-Wow, Illinois, wave your orange and your blue! RAH RAH!
When the team trots out before you, every man stand up and yell!
Back the team to gain a victory, Oskee-Wow-Wow, Illinois!
Make that R then, Pete.
“KJ, the rule is that usually in a PG-13 movie, you can drop the f-bomb once. Multiple utterances earn an “R” rating.”
I believe there’s something along the line that your one PG-13 F-bomb can’t be referring directly to procreation. Granted the MPAA is a arbitrary as all heck, so there aren’t technically any rules.
Izzone sign seen behind the announcers during a timeout. “Ed Hightower fan club: Population 1″
The thing is, if Hightower is really in this for the attention, he probably likes it more the more we complain.
If Crean wants to maintain is good guy, new sheriff in town, no more Sampsonanigans image, he should probably come down on Dumes for that junk.
How does Ed Hightower keep getting work?
Wow… bringing down the hammer.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3893461
“If Crean wants to maintain is good guy, new sheriff in town, no more Sampsonanigans image, he should probably come down on Dumes for that junk.”
Impressive that Crean did just that: indefinite suspension for Dumes. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3893461
If you’ve got it, could you post the Dumes flagrant on G on You Tube?
The ‘minor’ ones against T Walt and Herzog are posted, but viewers are not seeing the ‘nut job’ (player and act both).
Way over the top. I hope a few months of therapy can help the young man and he’s back next season.
The Indy Star explains that he’s had a lot of outside problems.
Along the lines of, OJ was pretty upset in Vegas when he just wanted to get his stuff back. I mean, not only had an unknown assailant murdered his wife and her friend, but, s/he did it while wearing his custom-made Italian shoes! OK, sorry, the kid’s #33 not #32 but, wow, Hoosier journalist wanting us to consider his out of wedlock kids and blah blah gimme a break….