Sunday, 2:20. Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis. CBS.
First thing: Six Elite Eights in 11 years. It’s good to be a Spartan.
Now to Louisville: This is a very, very good team. They come into tomorrow’s game riding a 13-game winning streak, having won both the Big East regular season and conference tournament titles. There’s a reason they were the top overall seed in the 65-team field.
Watching them dominate Arizona last night, they reminded me of USC in terms of their athleticism. They’re not quite as long throughout the lineup, but their top two players (by minutes played) are both guards in forwards’ bodies: 6’6″ Terrence Williams and 6’9″ Earl Clark. Those two players give Louisville great versatility, particularly on defense. And, on offense, they play much more together as a team than USC did. For the second time in three games, we go into this contest with a decided disadvantage in the athleticism department.
Louisville excels on defense, ranking second in the country in defensive efficiency. As evidence of exactly how athletic they are, they rank in the top ten nationally in both steal% and block%. Four players average at least 1.0 steal per game and three average at least 1.0 block per game–so it’s a team effort. They press on almost every possession, and it’s an aggressive press that puts 4 defenders in the back court and looks to create turnovers by trapping. Tom Izzo will need to have a precise gameplan for beating the press by breaking people deep for easy baskets. As I’ve argued before, if you don’t create easy baskets off the press, there’s no incentive for the opponent not to press you. We’re going to turn the ball over some against the press; we have to get enough high percentage baskets off it to offset that disadvantage.
Once the opponents gets the ball over halfcourt, the Cardinals fall into a 2-3 zone. And they play it well. They’re holding opponents to a 43.0% 2pt shooting% and a 30.4% 3pt shooting%. Playing in the zone, they don’t foul much, either. Their only defensive weakness is rebounding (typical of a zone team); they allow opponents to grab a decent 31.5% of their missed shots. MSU will need to push that number up even further. I dare say an OffReb% north of 40% may be a prerequisite for winning this game.
The third key (beyond breaking the press and crashing the boards) will be 3-point shooting. Thankfully, Kalin Lucas, Durrell Summers, and Chris Allen have all looked pretty good shooting the long ball in recent games. They’ll need to hit some shots in the soft spots of the 2-3 (on the wings, foul-line extended) to keep the zone honest and create some room for Goran Suton and Delvon Roe to operate on the interior.
On offense, Louisville is good, but not great. They rank 25th in the nation in offensive efficiency. They’ve been a touch inconsistent. Looking at Big East and postseason play combined, they have 5 games in which they posted an offensive efficiency figure above 120 (including last night), but also have eight games in which they were under 100.
Louisville’s strength is creating good shots, and making them. They shoot 51.4% on 2-pointers and 36.9% on 3-pointers. As I asserted above, the stats say they play together well as a team, ranking 21st in the country in the percentage of their made field goals that are assisted. Despite their overall athleticism, they don’t necessarily have a one-on-one playmaker who can consistently create offense for himself.
The Cardinals are middle of the road in terms of turning the ball over and grabbing offensive rebounds. Their distinct weakness on offense is a lack of ability to get to the free throw line; they rank just 295st nationally in free throw rate. And they generally don’t make a high percentage when they do get to the line (64.4%).
Louisville is led offensively by three players:
- Junior Earl Clark averages 14.1 points per game, with a 49.1/31.0/65.2 shooting line (2pt/3pt/FT). At 6’9″, he also leads the team in rebounds (8.8/game) and ranks second in assists (3.3/game).
- Senior Terrence Williams ranks second on the team in scoring at 12.7 points/game. He posts a shooting line of 46.9/38.4/57.5. The 6’6″ forward leads the team in assists at 5.0/game and averages 8.6 rebounds/game to boot.
- Freshman Samardo Samuels is Louisville’s main interior scoring option, averaging 12.1 points per game on 59.1% FG shooting. Somewhat curiously for a 6’9″, 260-pound player, though, Samuels only averages 4.8 rebounds/game.
For the most part, the primary role of the other players in Louisville’s rotation is shooting 3-pointers. Preston Knowles (42.6%), Jerry Smith (41.1%), Andre McGee (37.6%), and Edgar Sosa (30.6%) all average at least three 3-point attempts per game.
MSU will need to play stellar man-to-man defense in order to prevent Clark and Williams from creating good shooting looks with their size and athleticism, while at the same time avoiding giving up open three-point looks to Louisville’s shooters. Defensive communication and rotation will need to be seamless.
We’re going to need Raymar Morgan in this game on both ends of the court. He’s going to have to guard Clark or Williams on defense (Walton can only guard one of them). And he’s perhaps our best candidate to get open breaking down the court against the full-court press. The concern is that his jumpshot has completely disappeared again, which will be a problem against the Cardinal zone. I watched him miss about four consecutive 15-footers during halftime warm-ups last night; he looked pretty dejected at that point. He’s shown a lot more resilience this year than he did last year, though, so maybe he can shake that off by tomorrow afternoon.
Kenpom predicts a 69-65 Louisville win in a 69-possession game. It’s going to take a near-perfect performance for us to pull this game out. Hopefully, the jitters are gone after the Kansas game. There’s nothing left to lose at this point–and everything to gain. If MSU can come out playing poised and confidently (against the full-court press, in particular), we’ve got the tools to beat Louisville. It’s just going to take 40 minutes of offensive execution and defensive intensity. Louisville plays together as a team as well as anyone in the country; we’re going to need to match that, and then some. Hopefully, we’re up to the task. An all-expense-paid trip down I-96 to Ford Field would be the reward.
P.S. You can check out Card Chronicle for a Louisville-side perspective on this game.
Two possible pluses to playing an extreme pressing team:
1) For the last 15 games or so, it seems that MSU’s transition game has been a lot crisper than the halfcourt game. A majority of the turnovers have been weak passes around the three point line 15 or 20 seconds into the shot clock. Strange to say, but I think that being forced to run will cut down on the turnovers.
2) Assuming that his game will be played somewhat frantically, with a lot of running both ways, we should see a lot less hand-check fouls than usual (*ahem* Travis *ahem* Raymar).
I don’t think it takes a miracle or a perfect game to beat UL. If MSU can outrebound them by fifteen, and break even on turnovers, they win. There is a lot to like about UL, especially defensively, but they can be taken.
Lets hope we can replicate the production we got against Florida’s press in the 2000 championship game. If we can torch Louisville like we did Florida’s team we’ll be OK. Two factors not in our favor – we’re not the same team. We’re good this year, but I really don’t think we’re quite up there with that team in the ball handling department. This Louisville team is much better (I think) than that Florida team.
I think our best offense would come from penetrating and putting up soft jumpers that will result in easy rebounding opportunities. Then just let Suton, Roe, Morgan and Green go nuts on putbacks. Zone defenses are susceptible to offensive rebounding so we should be able to go nuts in that department. Lets hope the Louisville team that got blown out by Notre Dame shows up. We can beat that team. If the one that just slaughtered Arizona shows up we may be in trouble. They won’t beat us as badly as they beat Arizona, but if they play their best I fear they’re the better team.
I have a fear that Louisville will do to us what Memphis did last year – just out-athlete us, get easy baskets off turnovers, and put us away. I’d love to see Lucas show his one man fast break bona fides – if ever a one-man fast break would be an asset it would be this game. If he can go end to end against the press a few times maybe that makes them think twice about using it.
Whatever happens Walton and Suton can feel good about their last tourney. They may not get to the Final 4 but both guys have come up big and should have no regrets even if they don’t make it to the final weekend.
Billy Donavon is a Pitinio disciple. In 2000 it was Donavon’s press that ran its way to the Final. The question that year was how would MSU deal with that press and 2-3 zone. It just seems very similiar to me this year when talking about Louisville.
Joe Rexrode is reporting that Raymar Morgan’s nose is broken. He will have to wear a mask. Not good news, Raymar’s confidence will be even lower now.
http://noise.typepad.com/hey_joe/2009/03/morgans-nose-broken-and-other-quick-hits.html
dan, but that was a team of all upper classmen and one superstar freshman, all could handle, most had gone through 3+ years of simulating press at times in practice, and with very good team height, even on perimeter (save Mateen, who was a bull anyway, and was, well, Mateen). This year it’s two seniors, a turnover-prone junior seemingly low on confidence and high on protective masks, sophomores finding their way, freshmen finding their way, and a lot of non-height in the perimeter. You can’t just transplant all that cumulative experience of the 2000 team to the 2009 team, even if they great coach is still the same.
Sometimes you get hurt and you know it’ll be limiting, so you accept you won’t be at your best, and you end up playing better within your limits than nerves would have dictated otherwise. Being limited is oddly liberating at times, let’s hope this is one of those times.
Keith Appling just scored 49 points on 24 shots to win the state championship game. Future looks bright
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Don’t forget, guys, that Minnesota knocked off Louisville on a neutral court early in the season. I know everyone will say “they were a different team back then” but I’m just pointing it out.
Also, no offense to Louisville but I’d rather we play them then any of the other one seeds, especially UNC.
P.S. I just discovered this blog a few weeks ago and I wish I’d knew about all season. Some of the most top notch analysis I’ve experienced, period. KJ… keep up the good work.
UConn just beat a Mizzou team that is similar to Louisville, despite having 16 turnovers to Mizzou’s 6. The difference was UConn shooting 32 FT against 12 for Mizzou.
My point is that while we can’t give the ball away, we should recognize that even though Louisville is going to force turnovers, we can still play to our strengths and win this game. Our execution has to be better, or we’ve got no shot.
My fear though, as Mark in DC mentioned, is that this turns into the Memphis game from last year. Louisville just has more athletes.
Yeah, Memphis just out-athleted us last year. I don’t think Louisville is in that league because they don’t have quite as much size on the perimeter, but they are very good. As far as the one seeds go Pitt is the team I would most like to be facing. We beat them last year in the tournament and they didn’t add that much, and we’re better, so I think we could take them again. They like to play a half court game and dump it down low, which is a style we’re used to and good at playing against.
Louisville’s worst loss, and the one that gives me hope, is the Notre Dame game. There’s no excuse for losing by more than 30 points to a mediocre team like Notre Dame. We had a couple of losses to mediocre teams but they were a lot closer than 33 points. UNC is the only team that beat us by more than 20 and they are far better than mediocre, obviously.
One thing I don’t fear is the Memphis scenario. First, Louisville doesn’t have playmakers with as much explosiveness as Derrick Rose or Chris Douglas-Roberts. Second, I just don’t see this team folding the way we did last year. Kalin Lucas is too composed at this point in his career to let that happen.
Chris: Who knows, maybe the mask gives Raymar something to focus on and he stops shooting the ball so tentatively.
Digger Phelps once again proving he’s an idiot: He claims trying to run with Louisville (which Izzo has hinted that he will do) is insane because we haven’t been able to put up 80 points on anyone recently. Well, guess what? When you’re playing against good defenses at a relatively slow pace, nobody is going to put up 80. And with the exception of Arizona (whose defense is an atrocious 145th overall), Louisville didn’t hang 80 on any tournament teams this year. Not even against Morehead State (although they got 79 that day).
One big point in our favor should this turn out close in the end is Louisville’s awful FT%. Sosa is the only one with more than 30 attempts and a FT% above 67 (we have three shooters above 79%). If the game is close late, I like our chances. But we can’t afford the kind of sloppy play that dug us such a big hole early against Kansas. Louisville’s just slightly above average at hanging onto the ball, but that’s considerably better than Kansas was. I don’t think we can expect them to return the favor as the Jayhawks did if we get off to an ugly start.
A suggestion for the Master Site that our heroes have in the works: You will become famous if you devise a page titled “Rules for Intelligent Discussion of Basketball” (maybe do this in conjunction with Messers. Gasaway and Pomeroy?) Intelligent college basketball fans everywhere would take to it. And then intelligent college basketball fans could just say “Ha ha, Digger just broke rules 1, 2, 3…oh hell, he broke all 14 of them.”
Louisville fans are obnoxious. C-A-R-…….BOOO!
Digger’s remarks are almost too absurd to comment on. I would simply remind him that the object of the game is to score more points than the other guy, not to score a lot of points. That being said, I am a little concerned by the indications from Izzo and Lucas that they plan to run with Louisville. It seems to me that our most distinct advantages over the Cards are grabbing offensive rebounds and getting to the line. Our most obvious weakness is turnovers. That looks like a half-court game to me, rather than a run-and-gun shootout. We’ll see how it plays out. It’s been a great season regardless.
Hasn’t KJ posted multiple times that our turnover percentage is actually lower when we play fast?? All 10 of our first half turnovers Friday night were in the halfcourt.
Sure we can turn it over against the press, but we’re more likely to turn it over by throwing lazy passes in the half court or not coming to meet the ball (two things we unfortunately do quite a bit of).
Our high turnover games come against teams like Illinois and Purdue, who pressure the guards in the half court. The one full court pressing team we played this year (Okie State) we did pretty well against (ok I admit they’re not Louisville but we did well in that instance with one day of prep)
Go down swinging and attack the press and let Allen and Summers use their athletic ability.
Ten years ago, we played a regional final in a dome where the foe had most of the fans, a foe that the national media gave all the love to and forecast a win to. That foe jumped out to a 17-4 lead and was ready to blow us away.
Then the Spartans called a timeout and yelled at each other in the huddle. Granger starts making threes, defense gets tough, Hutson starts throwing outlet passes past half court, Mo Pete clutch down the stretch and the tougher team wins. . . and we officially arrive on the national level.
Lots of similarities today, and the same mindset will enable us to prevail.
C’mon Spartans! Time to shine. Raymar will do just fine with the Rip mask.