Post-loss links and reader feedback question
Posted by kj on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
Depressing stat of the day: MSU is now tied with Illinois in conference-only offensive efficiency. Another argument for more Lucas and less Walton. Illinois managed to beat Minnesota 84-60 last night, which presumably pulled them even with MSU in offensive efficiency.
Off the Tracks has kind words for Kalin Lucas:
Kalin, my advice to you is to please go to the NBA early. Go make some millions. In two games against us he has scored 36 points off the bench on 13 of 19 shooting. He is also 10 of 12 from the line and has been a nightmare for us each time. He’s also only a freshman, so we will be seeing him for awhile unless he heeds my advice. This kid is a gamer, and Michigan State has to be very excited about him. He’s one of those guys that is almost better coming off the bench.
Grant Wahl: “If charges against Sampson are true, he’s out at IU.” Inside the Hall agrees.
Wisconsin-IU tonight at 9:00 on BTN. [7:00 start; my bad.]
Reader feedback question of the week: Now that MSU’s shot at the Big Ten title appears to have vanished entirely, who are you rooting for and who do you think will win it? Purdue with their youth and momentum? IU with their talent and schedule advantage? Wisconsin with their experience?
Maybe this will help us find some emotional closure on our one-time title hopes . . .
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No Responses to “Post-loss links and reader feedback question”
spartanproduceron 13 Feb 2008 at 8:58 pm 1the choice of who to cheer for is easy. . . Purdue. Not only do they play the game the right way (tough and with confidence) but the other choices are
IU-whose coach cheats (and who knowingly hired a cheater)
Wisky-who are well coached, but whose coach is unlikeable and get preferential treatment from refs and the big ten scheduling “computer” (cause certainly no human could ever adjust the schedule to make it fair)
Plus if Purdue wins, and we were to finish 2nd, our overall tourney seeds might be similar, our non-con if a lot better than theirs, so finish 2nd and outperform then in the BTT and we could end up in the Midwest regional (ok it’s a long shot but it’s what we have to play for now).
And you can’t measure it in a stat, but the most disappointing thing Tuesday night was the lack of leadership from our captains. 2nd possession of the game, Neitzel catches it coming off a screen and instead of taking a 3, fakes a shot (letting the defender catch up) and passes to Walton, who also has no clue how much time is left. As we saw in the 2nd half, good things happen when Neitzel shoots, often its an offensive rebound. Our captains started the game tentative and that became contagious. Don’t understand why, given that they were the leaders last year and we seem to play less confidentally this year.
daveon 13 Feb 2008 at 10:05 pm 2msu stinks. izzo stinks, neitzel stinks.. they have brought great shame to the program. fire izzo and hire tom crean.
fordfieldrow2.blogspot.com
Danon 14 Feb 2008 at 3:35 am 3Dave … if 20-4 is “great shame” I think you’ve been a little spoiled. (Unless you were being sarcastic and poking fun at how much we rag on a team that’s got that good a record.) The Iowa and PSU losses were bad, certainly (although both kind of flukish – PSU shot fifty-frickin’-one free throws, which isn’t possible in a regulation game unless the refs call fouls for looking at the opponent funny, and we played great defense at Iowa only to have every single shot rim out), but let’s not forget that we have (depending on the fluctuations of Bradley and UW-Milwaukee’s RPI) somewhere between 8 and 10 top 100 wins, which is more than all but a dozen or so teams can say.
Kentucky fans ran their legendary coach out of town for not winning enough lately. Look how that’s turning out (I flipped the Kentucky-Vandy game on at one point and saw a score of 64-23).
As for who to root for, that’s easy: Purdue. I respect Wisconsin, but that doesn’t mean I like them (I grew up in Minnesota, so it’s impossible to like them) – and they still have to play us once, so them winning would almost necessarily include beating us. Indiana is a bunch of cheating scum, and the Wisconsin game tonight was the first time they were even competitive against a team better than Ohio State. (And on top of that, they have to play us twice yet and likely have to sweep to have a chance.)
TMadison25on 14 Feb 2008 at 7:55 am 4I’m cool with being the only team in the Big Ten to beat Purdue, realistically. In the back of my mind, I think that anything can happen. Yet, with the limited number of games left and three teams ahead of us in the standings, I should come to terms with not claiming any of the title.
I admire Bo Ryan and his ability to consistently be in the Big Ten title discussion, regardless of what the makeup of his team is. I feel for most of the Indiana players, considering the penalties that may follow. (Doesn’t it appear that Sampson will just cheat no matter where he is?) However, the Boilermakers are a great story and the way they play basketball is the most entertaining to watch as well. Their unselfish team-first play is great. I believe they made a decent run at Florida in the tournament last year.
C’mon Spartans… catch the Hoosiers while their reeling!
Spartalyticalon 14 Feb 2008 at 8:02 am 5Purdue is certainly the favorite at this point, with IU collecting their second conference loss last evening at the hands of those pesky Badgers. When the Boilers go down to Bloomington next week for their only meeting, it should be an entertaining matchup.
As far as who I want to win, it’s Purdue again. I couldn’t stand Gene Keady’s personality, coaching style, or ‘hair’cut, but this new Purdue team is one that is fun to watch as they defy the predictions and experts. As young as they are, this is a team that’s playing well beyond their inexperience and that’s loaded with talent. At least for now, they’re up to my second favorite Big Ten team.
For some reason, I can’t get excited about Wisconsin, although I feel they’re the second best team in conference. Something about Bo Ryan. Something about past players and some bad blood. When it comes tournament time, and there’s no path in sight that will cross ours, I suppose I pull for them, but in the throes of the conference season, I just can’t do it.
If there’s one team I truly want to see lose every game, other than Michigan of course, it’s Indiana. Inexplicably (actually it’s quite explicable, even if only to me), I’ve always had it in for them. I never liked Bobby Knight and his bull-in-a-china-shop style. He was a good coach, and his players over the years have fairly consistently said his coaching prepared them for life in addition to basketball. Sure, 902 wins are a strong function of longevity, but you don’t rack up that many because you simply showed up to work for 40-some-odd years. I, along with many others, never cared for Mike Davis. He never fit in, rubbed the media the wrong way, and did nothing but distract his team with his incoherent, entitlement-laiden tantrums along the way to their fluke championship appearance. And now with the news of Kelvin Sampson fully hitting the fan (which I’ve been wondering about and waiting for), I needn’t say much more. There’ve been countless players come through that program I didn’t like, who were/are either cocky, overrated, or both.
I like seeing Ohio State do well (in basketball) for the most part, but I’m not crazy about Thad Matta. Same for Illinois, except I maintain that Bruce Weber hasn’t proved himself as a decent coach at big time school yet, and that 2005’s championship game run was thanks to Bill Self’s runoff, and that the Illini are bottoming out the attrition of that group. I like to see Iowa do well, but they always seem to steal games against us (including in conference tournaments) while coughing them up to other teams. I’m indifferent to Penn State, and Northwestern shouldn’t even be in the conference (get rid of them and let us go to a complete double round robin — someone listen to me!). I also am interested to see how Tubby will fair at Minnesota, and want to see him do well. As for the school of which we shall not speak, well, that description says enough.
witless chumon 14 Feb 2008 at 9:33 am 6Rooting for Purdue. The only thing I’ve ever disliked about the Boilers is that stupid drum and I don’t see it at basketball games. I love their scrappyness.
I want to give it them, just based on schedule. They’ve only got one game left, at Indiana, that they shouldn’t be favored in. But, the Grinch (as someone on the MSU b-ball board on mlive pointed out, Bo Ryan is a dead ringer for Mt. Crumpet’s most famous resident) and his team have almost as easy a schedule and their experience and toughness will help them not drop a game they shouldn’t. I think the Boilers will drop one in there.
Drat.
Spartalyticalon 14 Feb 2008 at 9:37 am 7I always thought he looked like Dracula (or his grandfather).
kjon 14 Feb 2008 at 9:44 am 8Wrong! He looks like his own school’s mascot.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.c.....index.html
Spartalyticalon 14 Feb 2008 at 10:00 am 9Speaking of Keady, I always thought he had the look-like-your-own-mascot contest pegged, with Coach K. a close second.
Spartalyticalon 14 Feb 2008 at 11:05 am 10Completely unrelated to my badmouthing above, I think we need a thread on this Sampson news. Things are not looking good for this guy.