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A statistical look at Michigan State basketball, with a dash of football talk

Ugh

Posted by kj on Sunday, January 13th, 2008

I return from a week on a tropical island to THIS?  MSU loses to Iowa 43-36.  I caught pieces of this game on the radio driving from the airport and arriving back home.  Spartalytical (Official Spartans Weblog Keeper of the Comments Section) sums things up well for those of us who didn’t see the game on TV: “It felt like monitoring a chess match between two people who don’t know how to play chess.”

I’m not going to do the full box score breakdown, except to note that our Spartans managed to put together a quadruple stink bomb on offense:

1) They turned the ball over 18 times in a game that featured just 57 possessions (31.6%).

2) They shot an abysmal 32.5% from 2-point range and 25.0% from 3-point range.

3) They only got to the free throw line four times (making only one of those four shots).

4) They rebounded only 13 of their 39 missed shots (33.3%).

Based on the radio feed, it sounded like MSU was getting good look at the basket and they just weren’t dropping.  Can those of you in BTN land confirm or deny this?  In any event, a top-10 team simply has find enough way to score to win when they hold an opponent to 43 points.

Bottom line: We’ve now given up a game to the Badgers and Hoosiers in the race for the Big Ten crown.  It’s unlikely either of those two teams will return the favor and lose a game as bad as this one.  Here’s hoping Izzo can right the ship quickly.  We’ve got 15 games to make up for this loss.

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No Responses to “Ugh”

  1. wifeofaspartanon 13 Jan 2008 at 9:46 am 1

    Both teams shot poorly. I remember thinking “I wonder if someone sneaked in and did something to both rims” as it seemed a lot of shots hit some part of the rim from both teams and a lot were decent shots. Have to give credit to Iowa’s defense but unsure how they just shut down the low post and Morgan.

    Even Suton’s points in the second half were from the free throw area or a few steps in. We also missed key, key offensive rebounds. Watched the game on TV and still seemed like we could win just because Iowa not shooting well either (27%!) but could not get defensive stops in last 2 minutes. Freeman’s 3 pointer sealed it. Iowa’s defense was good but noone on our team stepped up. Would not say that we had fouls on us which were uncalled. If you give up driving to the basket and don’t fight well underneath, you don’t get fouled as often.

  2. Spartalyticalon 13 Jan 2008 at 1:54 pm 2

    Tony Freeman was the only guy that seemed to be alive and awake last night. Lots of credit to him, and credit to whatever adjustments Izzo made at halftime, but he slowed down a great deal in the second half.

    Once again, I didn’t watch the game on TV. For someone who did, what was with the foul disparity (10 to 25, with FTAs 4 to 29?!)? Neitzel looked to be getting shots, but were there Hawkeye hands in his face? Kalin Lucas, 0-8? Iowa is not a good team. And we played even worse, somehow.

    I sure hope this serves as a wake-up call to this team. I agree that Indiana and Wisconsin aren’t going to return many favors like this and drop an easy game to let us back in the door. All three conference games have been awful and sloppy efforts by this team. Remember the team that had its way with Texas? And fought back in hostile environments against Bradley (who’s tanked lately — thanks a lot) and BYU? Where’d that team go? Argh.

  3. Spartalyticalon 13 Jan 2008 at 2:31 pm 3

    Boy, all the write-ups on this game are really burning me. First of all, there’s no excuse for how this Spartan team played last night. They were as awful as awful can be. But the commentaries rip MSU up one side and down the other (rightfully so), but give very little emphasis to the fact that Iowa looked just as bad (and even worse, according to certain figures). Objectively, neither team deserved to win this one.

    Lickliter, who’s a great coach and will make a larger name for himself in Iowa City, gave the impression that this was a huge moral victory for his team as a result of their super-human effort. You better believe it’s a big deal to whip a high-ranked team, but dude, you shot 28%, made half your free throws, and scored 43 points overall. If the kids at Hawkeye-Carver want to rush the court for that kind of performance, that says something to me.

    Once again, the Spartans played abysmally, but there’s very few positives for either team to point to after this one, performance-wise, despite what the articles say. I want to believe that State is so summarily embarrassed after this effort and its result that they turn a corner, of sorts, which no one saw coming as recently as two weeks ago.

    I think I need a drink.

  4. dre27on 13 Jan 2008 at 4:17 pm 4

    I watched the game on t.v. and Neitzel did miss some open looks. He made his first two and after that he couldn’t get it going. With Neitzel though, an open look isn’t equal to someone breaking down the defense and kicking it out to him for an open shot. Its him flying around a screen and trying to shoot in that split second. His misses weren’t bad though, in and out.

    Lucas had maybe two or three open looks, a lot of his shots were acrobatic type layups in the lane with guys all around. I think his 0-8 is a bit miss leading, but that’s my opinion.

    As far as the foul disparity, I would say that many of those fouls were very weak. Iowa would wind down the shot clock, drive to the hoop, and then get fouled. I know lucas had one were it was clearly a push off from the Iowa guard, but was a push off. Many, many of these type of fouls. They weren’t even reach-ins, more along the lines of a bump with the body. Very frustrating.

    That is my take on the game, but I am probably missing some things.

  5. Danon 14 Jan 2008 at 12:40 am 5

    “Hideous” wouldn’t do that one justice. On defense we were playing great for the first 30 seconds of the shot clock, then we’d pick up a cheap foul and give Iowa another 35. (Didn’t matter, most of the time. Iowa was utterly inept on offense.) I couldn’t tell what was being called most of the time, watching at a bar that had audio for the football game on instead.

    I can only hope that gets the guys to wake up. They looked sloppy against Minnesota (though Minnesota’s D can have that effect; they’re one of the top teams at forcing turnovers) and Purdue. If we simply hang on to the ball, this is a team that can make a long run in March.

    And what is it with Iowa? Seems like we never shoot well there, even though they routinely get blown out at Breslin.