Friday night, approximately 9:37 p.m. Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis. CBS.
Unfortunately, professional responsibilities are going to preclude me from doing my own preview of the game. Instead, I’m going to point you toward a couple other preview and then let you take it from there.
First, Mr. Gasaway’s capsule on the game:
There is not a doubt in my mind that if USC had defeated Michigan State, Kansas would be facing an honest-to-goodness triangle-and-two defense in this game. With an offense where anyone not named “Sherron Collins” or “Cole Aldrich” is forbidden by state law to attempt a shot, the Jayhawks were born to face that look. The Spartans prevailed against the Trojans, however, and so Tom Izzo’s defense will play KU straight up. Truth be told, that defense has had a lot of success this year playing opponents straight up. When MSU has the ball, this game will mark the first real test of their crash-the-glass mode of scoring. Aldrich is one of the finest defensive rebounders in the nation, playing for a team that yet again led the Big 12 in this category. This game could be bizarro Syracuse/Oklahoma: close but low-efficiency on offense.
Second, Rock Chalk Talk has a Kansas-side preview of the game. Their take on what’s changed since the first time the two teams met:
All that said a lot has changed for Kansas. The team is riding high after exceeding expectations this season. Coach Self has shortened the bench and settled on a rotation whereas last game he was still very much experimenting. The Morris twins, specifically Marcus, along with Mario Little have emerged as contributors in the eight man rotation and were virtually non-existent in the first match up. Tyshawn Taylor was worth only 2 points and not much else in the first go around and has improved immensly over the conference schedule. Finally, this one is a neutral court and not in Breslin Center. Will it be enough, I feel like we’ve got a good shot. Revenge, tourney determination and Sherron Collins can squeek this one out but it will be no small task. I look for a Kansas victory in a nail biter here, or at least that’s what I hope.
The rest is in your hands, my friends. What do you see in the stats? Does Tom Izzo gear the defense to stopping Collins and/or Alrich, or does he let those two score their points and make sure the rest of the team doesn’t get rolling? What’s your gut say about the final outcome?
Re: the Kansas preview. Do you buy the premise that Kansas has changed since January, but MSU has not? Will Suton be healthier than the first match-up? Have no Spartans become better players since January?
Having read a number of previews from the Kansas side, that is the consistent theme I see. Kansas is better/more improved/stronger than last time, but MSU hasn’t changed. Few acknowledge the changes that MSU has gone through since January.
I don’t buy that premise in the slightest. That kind of stuff is usually coming from those who deride the Big 10, no matter what is going on. The Sunday games, with us beating the chic pick in USC and Purdue controlling the entire game against UW should have helped, but most people just see us as a brawling group of pseudo-football players.
We’re way better than we were in January. So are they. We’ll see what happens. I like the matchup. I like it a lot.
I’m way more worried about Kansas though than a potential game against Arizona/ Louisville.
Yeah, I think some of the previews commentary is missing out on MSU being much better defensively than earlier in the year. True, MSU never figured out the turnover issues, and the host of injuries/illness further prevented the consistent offensive contributions of the front court (and a severe shooting cramp from the wings), but that’s all on offense. That’s prettier to see and easier to get stats on. But the real improvement for MSU has been defense with guys like Green, Allen, and Summers making much less mistakes (not claiming they are perfect), and maybe that is missed more on everyone else who hasn’t been watching MSU consistently this season.
Maybe Kansas is great to go against with a triangle-and-two, and maybe MSU loses some opportunity with Izzo not being a zone guy there. But I still stick to thinking that MSU is particularly well suited to defend against the Kansas big two with Walton/Lucas and Suton/Roe/Ibok and some limited Gray banging.
I don’t know guys…….the last time we played Kansas, we were in the midst of an eleven game winning streak. Just two games post Kansas, we went on an offensive struggle with winning streaks of two, three and five games (including two losses, back to back, at home. I know, I know, I know, there were the ridiculous shots by the opponents that fell and the injuries, however, nonetheless, can any of us say that we have fully recovered from that?)
Certainly any number game winning streak is good and I am not minimizing those wins by any degree. However, personally, I think we peaked around that time and the rest of the season has been about “hanging on” and “gutting it out”. Meanwhile, Kansas went on a tear and won the regular season Big 12 conference title.
Seems to me the teams have gone in opposite directions, at least offensively. Note the point differential for Kansas in their first two games in the dance and ours. I think if Kansas gets up by an amount that is considered large (i.e. ten points), we are in trouble.
The other side of this is that throughout the Big Ten season wins, with the exception of the second Minnesota and the first Indiana game, the games have basically been “close” until sometime in the second half when we won by wearing the opposition down with our defense and depth.
As long as we do not allow Kansas into any kind of offensive rhythm, looks like another nail biter……
Good news: Kansas doesn’t force turnovers, and they’re not particularly good at hanging onto the ball either. That bodes well, both considering our maddening turnover issues and our chances at running the break.
Suton’s midrange game should (much as I think we need him in the paint most games to clean up the boards) help pull Aldrich away from the rim and hopefully reduce his effectiveness as a shot-blocker. We need him to hit those shots. If Suton can at least contain Aldrich and Walton can do his usual job to limit Collins, I think we’re in good shape.
Given Aldrich’s shot-blocking prowess, Kansas opponents are surprisingly reluctant to go three-happy. The percentage of opposing attempts from beyond the arc is only slightly above average (our opponents take a significantly higher fraction of attempts from 3-point land).
On the glass: Kansas’s rebounding seems to come from Aldrich and the bench. Of the top five minutes-getters, Aldrich is the only one with a DR% over 7.6 or OR% above 3.3. All of the non-Aldrich players that contribute significantly on the glass combine for 53 minutes, and most of them are very foul-prone. We probably won’t be hanging a 50% OR on them, but we should be able to come out ahead on the glass.
Rotation: Kansas runs a four-guard lineup at least occasionally, and virtually always has at least three on the floor. We can create mismatches by going big, but it might also open things up for Kansas’s role players. Given that Morningstar, Reed, and Taylor are good from long range, this might be a bad idea. On our side, I think we’ll see the usual three-guard lineups and put Morgan/Roe on Taylor (Morningstar and especially Reed take virtually all of their shots from outside, while Taylor takes about five 2-pointers for every two 3s).
Tman: Opposite directions? We won the Big Ten by 4 games and won a game in the tournament. Kansas did win the Big 12 but lost in the first round of their conference tournament to an NIT team. Our depth is a strength and allows us to take control in the second half of many games. I agree that things are different this time around and Kansas should not be taken lightly, but believe both teams ended conference play strong.
Hey fellas, I’m the writer for the Kansas preview you’ve been discussing and I wanted to address an area that you mentioned concerning my statement that Kansas has changed while Michigan State not so much.
My point was more that I felt you guys were a stronger team when we first met and likely the stronger team overall right now, just that we probably had much more room to grow and did from the last meeting than the Spartans. The challenge will be not regressing which can happen with a young group in a high pressure situation. I’ll tell you this much, Bill Self is spending a good amount of time this week trying to ease the nerves of our newcomers because they did have that deer in headlights look at times last weekend. Collins and Aldrich were just able to easily shoulder the load, that won’t be the case Friday.
Like I said though I certainly wasn’t trying to say nothing has changed on the Spartan side as obviously a team is constantly evolving throughout a college bball season especially from January to March. Just that it’s much much more obvious on the Kansas side of things for a variety of reasons.
We need 30 good minutes from Suton. I don’t care if he shoots 1-10 if he limits Aldrich to 3 points like he did Gibson. The match up I’m really worried about is Collins vs. Walton. Collins had a miserable first half in East Lansing. In the second half he got to the rim at will on his way to scoring 20 points. Part of the problem was whistle happy Hightower. The 2nd half of that game took 90 minutes. Lets hope the refs let them play. Either way it should be a great game.
Both Collins and Aldrich have posted conference-POTY-type numbers, but Aldrich’s tempo-free stats are particularly imposing:
60.3% FG%
79.1% FT%
28.5% DefReb%
9.5% Block%
And a TO% of just 13.9%–very good for a big man who touches the ball quite a bit
I think we’ll see a good dose of Mr. Ibok in the first half to try to keep Aldrich off balance and keep Suton out of foul trouble.
I posted a brief preview on a previous post, but, looking at the four factors, we turn the ball over less and force more turnovers, and rebound better, plus we have a slightly higher free throw rate. They shoot a higher effective field goal percentage. Their adjusted offensive and defensive efficiencies are, despite our advantage in three of the four factors, slightly higher than ours. In all cases the margins are pretty small – they are one of the few teams that could come close to matching us on the glass with an “average” rebounding night. Granted, we do it by committee (although Suton is one of the few guys who can match Aldrich in this area) whereas they rely more on one guy to get it done.
Looking at individual matchups, Lucas and Collins are basically a wash. I give them a slight advantage at center as Aldrich is more accomplished offensively than Suton. Roe may be able to double down on Aldrich because they don’t have anyone of his size in their starting lineup, but he may have to guard on the perimeter, which may pose some matchup problems, although he has shown an ability to do that this year. Where we may have a big advantage is with Morgan. They’ve got Aldrich at 6’11″ and start three 6’3″ guards in addition to Collins, who is 5’11″ (at least that’s what Kenpom.com shows as their starting lineup). Morgan will have a significant height advantage on whoever is guarding him, and usually has success against players he has a size advantage on so he may go off in this game. I think he has the athleticism to guard a smaller guy on the other end so they won’t have much of a mismatch there. I think that will be the difference – we have more proven scoring options with Suton, Lucas, and Morgan, in our starting lineup than they do, and we have more coming off the bench.
Their profile is eerily like ours – they don’t shoot that many threes, have a fairly high assist rates, hit the offensive glass well, and have some turnover issues like we do. They do shoot more accurately on 3 pointers when they take them, and Aldrich is very efficient down low. Collins is good at driving the lane, dishing assists, and either finishing or drawing fouls (sound familiar?). We’re even pretty close in terms of pace. They play good D and rebound well. If we can get Aldrich in foul trouble they really don’t have a backup with his size. OTOH, if Suton gets into trouble we can bring good size in to match him at least in terms of rebounding and defense, and have other scoring options. If Suton plays Aldrich even like he did with Taj Gibson we should win – they need to come out ahead in that matchup.
This game will come down to the wire I think, unless one team goes into the tank because of nerves or whatever. Their youth, and the fact that they weren’t really tested during the first weekend of the tournament, may give us an advantage in terms of those intangibles. I don’t make much of a revenge factor. Were we facing Maryland I don’t think revenge for our out-of-conference loss to them would be that much of a motivator – non-conference losses just aren’t that devestating to a team (at least non-tournament ones), unless there is some other rivalry factor involved. If we play well, I see us winning a close one but it will come down to who is hitting their shots and executing on both ends.
Just to clarify on the size advantage – Kenpom shows 3 6’3″ guards (Taylor, Reed, and Morningstar) plus Collins and Aldrich as their starters. I find this hard to believe – I’m guessing that one of the Morrises has cracked the starting lineup to give them some size. Still, unless both of them are playing at the same time, they’re starting a 3 guard lineup which means Morgan or Roe should be going against a guy he has 5 inches on.
I think Raymar is the X-factor. He scored 13 pts, 3-8 from the field, 7-11 from the stripe, with 8 rebounds (4 offensive), 1 assist and 3 turnovers in game 1. Not a great, but very solid performance from pre-mono RM.
I think MSU’s back court strength vs. Collins, Alderich’s rebounding vs. Suton and crew neutralize each other.
However, I don’t think KU has anyone who can go toe to toe with RM. If he plays a solid game, we win comfortably. If he gets into foul trouble and sulks, we could be in for trouble.
I’d like to see him on the box, working on another Jayhawk from Aldrich, and not hoisting low percentage 3′s.
Go get it done, big fella!
I agree if RM has the size mismatch you let Suton occupy Aldrich and have Morgan post his guy up. If they double-team him either Roe or Suton should be available for a high percentage shot.
In other news the Big Ten Geeks have a preview up if anyone is looking for further procrastination options.
Mark – Kenpom lists the top five by minutes as “starters”. It’s unusual for this not to be the case, but it almost certainly is here.