The Spartans bow out to the Buckeyes 82-70 in a 69-possession game. StatSheet box score.
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- The difference in 2-point shooting percentages was fairly narrow, so the big differential in the eFG% bar was driven almost entirely by 3-point shooting. They hit 9 of 16 from beyond the arc. We hit 3 of 21. There’s your ball game.
- It’s surprising we haven’t had a game like this yet this season, in which the complete inability to hit a 3-pointer costs us the ability to compete for a win. We actually ended up with pretty good turnover and offensive rebounding numbers; knocking down a few 3-pointers was the only real problem on offense.
- The main problems today were on defense. As I feared, Ohio State’s lineup caused us fits. Izzo stayed big and tried to defend Evan Turner by putting a big man on him and hedging the other defenders toward him when he drove. It worked for a while, but eventually he figured it out and created points by dishing to Jon Diebler outside and B.J. Mullens inside.
- And we couldn’t take advantage of the mistmatch on the other end of the floor. Gray, Green, and Roe combined to shoot just 4-11.
- William Buford, please go pro.
- When P.J. Hill and Jeremie Simmons combine to make 3 of 4 three-point attempts, you know it’s not your day.
- Should Izzo have put the full court pressure on earlier–to take advantage of Ohio State’s lack of depth and suspect point guard play?
- Korie Lucious: 16 points in 18 minutes. Opposing defenses are going to have a real challenge guarding both him and Lucas for 20 minutes per game next year.
- My theory on Chris Allen: Let him take take three jumpshots. If he makes one, great: Let him play 20 minutes. If he doesn’t, sit him down. He doesn’t appear to have the ability to shoot himself out of a slump.
Losses in the conference tournament hurt–but not quite as much as regular season conference losses or NCAA Tournament losses. It would have been nice to get this monkey off our backs, too–but it was the smaller of the two monkeys.
On to the Big Dance. I think the #1 seed/#2 seed thing has probably been overblown. There are 8 teams at this point that are clearly in the top tier. As long as we’re not in the same region as UNC, I’m not sure if it matters which of those teams we’re grouped with.
P.S. Robbie Hummel looked oftly spry for a guy with a bad back playing his second game in two days this afternoon. I wouldn’t want to be a #1 seed that has to play Purdue in the third round of the NCAA Tournament.
Figures that we’d lose when the turnover rate was so in our favor. Just one of those days where the rims are unusually cruel. If the threes are more normal I think we would have broken their zone.
The problem with sitting Allen down is that he is still the best three point shooting threat on the team, even when he spaces out on defense and screw up on offense. The scouting report on MSU is pretty clear now — pack in the zone defense and see if they can make an outside shot. It is pretty revealing that Izzo brought in Thornton as a third shooting option — there is no one else on the bench.
I agree with you, however, that the game was lost on defense. MSU does not match up all that well with OSU, and that was particularly clear today. Buford and Diebler had not had good games the first two games between the teams. They were bound to play better this time, and when they hit threes, they are a hard team to beat.
MSU’s general flatness in this game reminded me of previous losses, particularly the Maryland game. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see this as a final four team, because I just don’t see them playing 4 straight games at a high level.
What was with Roe? He seemed totally flat today.
Roe was pretty non-existent in the last game as well. I too lack faith in this teams ability to play at a high level for 4 games straight. If they’re going to get there it’s going to be because of a combination of really good D, refs that let them play tough D.. and luck which causes opponents not to get hot like ohio state did today.
Hopefully, exiting the long, hard slog of Big Ten play–where everyone knows not only your name, but your every offensive and defensive tendency–will restore our faith in the team.
Agreed KJ. My only concerns are the fact that it wasn’t defensive scouting that stopped MSU today – it was the ability to hit an open shot. Playing non-conference opponents isn’t going to make those shots fall. What I am hoping for is that teams figure MSU isn’t an up-tempo team looking to push it and MSU can score a lot of easy transition buckets once they get into the tournament.
After a couple of turnovers Suton was 4-4 in the first half and they basically had no answer for him. We just never seemed to go back to that in the second half.
Our shooting was sub-par, to be sure, and I am concerned about how we will do in the tournament against a team that likes to play zone. We have not shown the ability to beat a zone consistently all year long. I think our loss to PSU was the only time we executed half-way decently against one, and in that case their lights out shooting was too much. If I were the BC/USC winner I would pack the zone in against us and hope we have an off shooting night.
At this point I think we should put Lucious in with Lucas in at the same time, with Walton in there too if the other team’s best scorer is a wing. It’s a small lineup but Lucious and Lucas are currently our best 3 point shooters and we could have one run the point while the other provides spot up 3 point shooting. I agree with playing Allen for a little while to see if he’s having an off or on night. I don’t know where Summers’s 3 point shooting went but it clearly has left him over the past several games.
We really lost this game on D though – they shot north of 60 percent and if you let a team do that you’re not going to win all that often. Our D has been pretty strong lately so I’ll chalk our lackluster performance up to complacency – we really didn’t have all that much to play for. Given our track record I think we’ll spring back in that department. The inability to shoot from outside is the more glaring and persistent weakness. We absolutely have to find some outside shooting.