Remember when all we talked about was turnovers?
The problem obviously raised its ugly head last night, as MSU posted a horrific turnover percentage of 31.4% against Purdue’s hounding man-to-man defense. I thought we should take a long-term view of the team’s turnover problems. The graph below shows MSU’s game-by-game turnover percentages over the last two seasons. The breaks in the line represent transitions from nonconference play to conference play to postseason play to the new season (and then to conference play again).
Good news: Last year, we had 11 games with a TO% over 25% (which I consider to be crisis level). This year, with over 2/3 of the season gone, we’ve done so only 4 times. This team doesn’t seem to have the same penchant for making boneheaded decisions with the ball that the last two teams had.
Bad news: We still struggle against good, aggressive man-to-man defense. The four games we’ve had 25%+ TO%s include the three games against North Carolina, Illinois, and Purdue. The fourth was one of the Northwestern games, going against the 1-3-1.
Fixing the issues against Purdue/Illinois-level defense isn’t an easy issue. On the one hand, I think the players have to be willing to take their defenders off the dribble to make them pay for playing defense so aggressively. At the same time, they have to make a good decision with the ball when they get into the lane. Last night, they were intent on getting all the way to the basket; the result was 6 offensive fouls.
Ultimately, Tom Izzo teams are coached to run precise set plays to create good looks near the basket or open jumpshots. Against most opponents, it works like a charm. But when a team is athletic and tenacious enough to force us out of our comfort zones offensively, it spells trouble. At that point, you just have to make good basketball plays. Last night, we didn’t make nearly enough of them.
This team gets two more chances in the regular season to show they make those plays. I, for one, still think they’ve got the moxie and the balance to do it. For whatever reason, I just can’t get down on this team (for more than 24 hours at least).
P.S. Here’s the TAFKATBTW on MSU’s limitations. His concern is that we’re not making a terribly high percentage of the shots we do get off.
Odd that MSU currently resides at the top of the Big Ten in PPP at 1.08 (given the 38-33 debacle in Champaign, that is strong), and 27th nationally in offensive efficiency, according to Ken Pom.
At the same time, MSU is 109th in effective field goal percentage. Then again Duke is 120th. Purdue, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are all shooting relatively the same as MSU
I think there’s a clear break in our shooting percentage in the past few games. Up until the Indiana game we were actually one of the best three point shooting teams in the nation in percentage terms, especially if you threw out Allen, who has been in a season long slump. We didn’t take all that many threes but when we did take them they tended to go in. Starting with the Indiana game, we’ve gone 3 straight games with sub 30 percent shooting from 3 point range. Our overall shooting percentage has been pretty lackluster as well. The past 3 games are statistical outliers, shooting percentage-wise, when compared with the rest of the season.
Part of our struggles may be due to Morgan’s absence – he does not take a lot of 3s, but he does take a lot of 2s and makes a very high percentage of them. His presence forces teams to concentrate more on playing good interior D and frees up more open looks from the perimeter. Without him, teams can play us tighter on the perimeter because the only guy we’ve got that is a fairly accomplished post scorer is Suton. He’s OK but if the other team puts their best post defender on him he’s not going to take over a game (maybe he can with rebounding but not with scoring). Roe is still pretty raw offensively – he scores most of his points on putbacks rather than post moves within the offense. This is where Gray’s failure to develop hurts us most. Morgan provides us with two post scoring threats, which is why he is so important. Hopefully he’ll work himself back into shape soon and we can start hitting shots again.
I agree that guys have to take what they can get with drives to the basket instead of forcing their way to the rim. Lucas rarely gets called for charging but Summers and Allen seem to just charge in there no matter what kind of position a defender may have. They’ve got to make better decisions on drives to the basket. Lucas and Summers seem like the kind of guys who would feast on agressive perimeter man-to-man D. With their quickness you’d think he could easily take guys off the dribble and penetrate to either score or draw defensive attention so he can find a big left open down low. That doesn’t seem to happen when we play teams with that type of D though. I’m not sure this is a fault of Izzo’s offense per se – I remember Cleaves, Bell, and MoPete being pretty good slashers during that era. Hopefully the current crew will pick up the same knack and soon.
Completely agree with the above post and comments. I have been screaming about this for years! When teams are playing that aggressive you have to drive into them at an angle. Even though the offensive player initiates the contact, the defender almost always gets called for the foul. The defense will eventually back off or face foul trouble. Wisonsin does this to us all the time. Alan Anderson was an artist at this which is why he is #2 all time in free throws.
There is a reason for MSU being at the top in turnovers & the bottom in steals every year in the B10, & it has nothing to do with the players on the court. It has everything to do with the stubbornness of their coach.
I wish the Spartans would extend pressure defense out to half court like PU & Illinois. This might result in a few more dribble drive layups by opponents, but with more “on the ball” pressure it would generate more steals & turn overs by opponents.
Other teams have proven they can make a high % of 25 ft. SET SHOTS when no one is guarding them closely. That soft, sagging, man to man with no pressure on ball handler seldom results in steals that lead to break away lay ups that every team would love to have 5 or 6/game. This would relieve some of the pressure MSU players have when they brick all those open look 3′s that they get every game.
It’s all too often Tom’s offense works to get wide open looks from outside, yet the player misses the shot. Chris Hill, Maurice Ager, Drew Nietzel, Shannon Brown, & now Chris Allen all seemed to miss way too many wide open 3′s where they have time to set, & line up the shot. Is it because all the effort that went into getting the open look adds too much pressure to make it? Or is a great shooter like Mo Pete an anomaly & not the normality?
Every offensive and defensive system has strengths and weaknesses. On offense, MSU’s typical strategy is to: 1) aggressively get the ball down the court and look for an easy basket; and 2) then run one of many sets if option #1 fails. During the last ten years, this offensive strategy has been largely successful (4 final fours, 1 national championship, etc.). At Illinois, they have been running the same motion offense during Webber’s entire tenure. Last night, that offense looked terrible. In 2005 with Dee Brown, Luther Head, Deron Williams, etc., that same offense was great. On the call-in shows in Champaign, fans rail against the motion offense since there are no set plays like they do at MSU!
Basically, there are several systems that can be successful. A successful coach identifies a system that fits their personality and recruits accordingly. From my perspective, Izzo’s philosophy is not the same I would employ but I still respect his program. Izzo is the best coach in the Big Ten and the coach of my favorite team.
The other team plays a significant role as to whether a particular system will work. The Purdue game was one of the times where the other team was very effective at taking MSU out of their comfort zone. However, I don’t think Purdue’s half-court man-to-man defense was the major problem. Rather, they hounded Lucas continuously and made it very difficult to get good outlet passes that led to fast breaks. Jackson would start hounding Lucas while Purdue’s shot was still in the air! (I suspect that we will see this strategy again) Consequently, we had very few quick baskets which is typically a major strength for us. Plus, after we missed many bunnies in the first half, we played tentative which just made Purdue’s defense even more effective.
Paging SpartanDan again.
Please check your e-mail, sir.
Total Izzo fan, but I am feeling the same about extending our defense. It seems when we have the ball, Lucas is getting pushed back near the mid-court line, but we concede the longer threes. I would like to see more drives with kickouts, perhaps even kick with a second pass, i.e. Lucas to Summers to Allen.
Appreciate the fact that Lucious needs some minutes, and I know Lucas got pretty frazzled on Sunday, but we need more height – more Summers/Allen/Lucas, not Summers/Lucas/Lucious. KLIF1 and KLIF2 are fast, but are we really getting the benefits in terms of getting more steals?
I really go back and forth on the “D” that Walton brings vs. his ability/hesitation to take threes. Perhaps Lucas drives, kicks to Walton who fills his spot at the top and then he could pass to a wing? Lucas needs to utilize his pull up jumper in the key more and maybe quit trying to drive so deeply.
Not on board with the extension of the D.
15th in the nation in defensive efficiency.
Offensive woes have been the Achilles heels of this team in the losing Big 10 efforts. Extending the defense will open up easy baskets. I do agree with the slashers needing to make better drives to the basket, though. Tuesday was just a bad game to a solid team against the ropes that is finally getting their star player back.
I agree — scoring points has been a problem for this team. Against Purdue, I wondered that they did not run some isolation plays for Lucas, where he would take his guy to the rim. MSU’s spacing was such that when Lucas got a step on his guy some other defender would be in his face.
I do agree that when these really physical defenses take MSU completely out of its flow, there never seems to be a plan B. something simple that generates points.
It may be that this is just not a very good jump shooting team. They are just too inconsistent. Teams are laying off Lucas now, knowing he’s not going to hit that 25 footer.
Good point, T. Just noticed today that we’re now ranked higher on defense than we are on offense.
[...] 3-point shooting proficiency and ability to create turnovers are somewhat concerning. But, as I’ve argued previously, this year’s MSU team has really only struggle with turnovers against teams with talented and [...]