The Spartans bounce the Colonials 77-62 in a 65-possession game. StatSheet box score.
The Kenpom prediction was a scoreline of 73-60, so the game result was in line with statistical expectations. Robert Morris kept things close early by knocking down some 3-pointers, but eventually MSU’s size and athleticism were too much for the Colonials to handle. Michigan State used a 21-point run spanning halftime to put the game out of reach with roughly 15 minutes to go.
The four factor graph shows MSU’s dominance on the boards and getting the ball inside to create situations in which the Colonials had to foul:
Five players hit double digits in scoring:
- Raymar Morgan scored 16 points on 7-14 FG shooting. He came out aggressively in the game and looks like he’s fully back to being the player he was before his illness.
- Draymond Green also scored 16, converting 7 of 8 FG attempts. Green took advantage of RMU’s small lineup to score in multiple ways around the basket.
- Kalin Lucas had 13 points, knocking down his only 3-point attempt and hitting all 4 of his free throw attempts.
- Goran Suton was a man among boys: 11 points and 17 rebounds. He would have hit the 20-rebound mark if Izzo hadn’t pulled the starters with 5-6 minutes left.
- Chris Allen scored 10 points on 2-4 three-point shooting. Exactly the kind of game we need out of him; now the question is whether he can do it in back-to-back games.
Travis Walton did his usual number on the opponent’s top perimeter scorer, holding Jeremy Chappell to 11 points on 14 FG attempts (which was still the team high for RMU).
A positive resulting from putting the game effectively out of reach early in the second half is that no MSU player had to play more than 25 minutes. Despite winning by 17, USC played three of its players for the full 40 minutes and a fourth player for 36 minutes. Hopefully, that creates an advantage 40 hours from now.
Tonight’s win was a workmanlike effort–exactly the kind of performance you want as a high seed in the first round of the tournament. It’s encouraging that multiple players contributed throughout the game. Ten players played at least 11 minutes. To make a deep run, we’re going to need productive minutes throughout the playing rotation.
Next up: An all-Greek affair, as the Spartans battle the Trojans on Sunday. Game time is 5:00 p.m. I’ll try to get a game preview up tomorrow, but it probably won’t be until late in the day.
P.S. For what it’s worth, only three of the top eight seeds in the Midwest region remain alive. Of course, those three teams are the top three seeds: Louisville, MSU, and Kansas.
Pretty much the perfect first game of a March run, I thought. A real test for the first 15 minutes, then a feel good offensive and defensive explosion, then rest for the starters and good minutes for everyone. The only cloud remains the outside shooting. MSU will not get 17 offensive rebounds tomorow. Does USC play a zone?
Video of opening tip and Raymar’s dunk off of it:
I don’t get how ESPN manages to put two or three rather blaise alley oops in their top 10 today, but this goes unmentioned. That’s an alley oop three seconds off of the opening tip.
Do you think that Allen is going to get more minutes that Summers throughout the tournament?
I’m in favor of that. I think Allen’s upside for the tournament is higher than Summers’. We will have to live and die by how well Allen plays. If he can hit a couple of threes each game, we can beat some really good teams. If he doesn’t, we probably can’t beat the lower seeds in this tournament.
Kudos to Green – he really had a good game. If memory serves, one of the knocks on him coming in was conditioning but he ran the floor really well last night and scored on a couple of breaks. If we can continue to get that kind of production from him off the bench it makes us deeper, bigger, and stronger. It’s encouraging to see Allen shoot 50% from three point land but as KJ notes, he has to do it consistently before we can get too excited.
I would love to see the Dayton Flyers take down Kansas and think they have a shot at it. If Cleveland State makes it to the sweet 16 I’m wearing my Viking helmet into work on Monday. Despite the OSU loss this has been quite a tournament for Ohio teams so far. Cinderella finally showed up.
Floyd loves to throw junk defenses at people, so that’s a bit of a concern – but he’ll have had only a day to work on it (unless they started prep before the BC game, which seems a bit risky if they weren’t going to go nuts with it then). I don’t think they’re normally inclined to go zone, though, and I’m not sure our team fits the profile of one he likes to bring the unconventional D against – that was usually to shut down a single star player. Their opponents take slightly more 3s than average, but by itself that’s not a solid indicator of zone – our opponents take a *lot* more 3s than average.
The good news is, USC doesn’t like to shoot 3s and isn’t particularly good at it when they do. So the rain of 30-foot bank shots seems to be a minimal risk.