" title="Spartans Weblog">Spartans Weblog

We’re now just 10 days out from the MSU basketball team’s first real game.  At this point, I feel like a good sports blogger would offer up a nice, comprehensive team preview.  But I also feel like I’ve said just about everything I can think of about this roster of players over the last seven months.  In particular, this post and this one still seem pretty accurate.

What I’m going to try to do over the next week and a half is put together 3-4 posts with a few random thoughts/predictions about the upcoming season that I haven’t hit on thus far.  Let’s start with what I think may be the big-picture key to MSU’s season: three-point shooting.

Going into this season, I have very few worries about defense and rebounding.  With 14 players competing for playing time, Tom Izzo will have everyone extremely motivated to play hard every minute of every game.  And that depth will mean the team can play the aggressive style of man-to-man defense Izzo prefers.  There’ll be no need for gimmicky zone defenses.

On offense, we know this team will score buckets of points whenever the opportunity to push the ball in transition arises.  Kalin Lucas is exactly the point guard this team has been looking for since Mateen Cleaves graduated, and Korie Lucious is already showing a great ability to distribute the ball on the fast break.

The major outstanding question is what happens when the team is forced to play half-court offense.  Last year, the team struggled to score at times when things bogged down, leading to inconsistent offensive performance in conference play.

The good news is that we have several players who should be able to create scoring opportunities near the basket: Lucas and Summers off the drive and Morgan, Roe, and Suton in the low-post.  To keep those options open, though, MSU will need to show it can consistently make perimeter shots, particularly from 3-point range.  Otherwise, defenses will be able to collapse on players in the paint and it will be tough to create good looks at the basket.

We know Chris Allen will step into Neitzel’s designated sharpshooter role and put up good numbers (36.0% on 3.1 3-point shots/game last season in a fairly limited role).  But, beyond that, our perimeter shooters are not necessarily of the pure-shooter variety.  Kalin Lucas and Durrell Summers have shown the ability to hit the three in spurts (36.4% on 1.5 shots/game for Lucas; 50.0% for Summers, but on just 22 shots).  Raymar Morgan and Goran Suton can hit the three, but have never done it consistently.  Korie Lucious should hopefully provide a solid shooting option off the bench for 10-15 minutes/game.  Isaiah Dahlman’s 3-point shot looks improved, but it’s unclear how much he’ll be on the floor.

As much as what we see in preseason scrimmages and exhibition games generally doesn’t carry much meaning, I am encouraged by MSU’s 3-point shooting percentages thus far.  Between the Green-White game and the game against Northern, Spartan shooters have made 23 of 44 three-point attempts, for a very healthy percentage of 44.0%.  Lucas has shot 4-9; Summers has shot 4-6.  (One note: I found myself getting confused by the two 3-point lines on the floor last night, being used to the closer one being the college line when a team plays in an NBA arena.  The players may still be adjusting to this, too, as MSU made at least 2-3 two-pointers that would have been three-pointers with the old line.)

My intuition is that if Lucas and Summers both shoot 37% or better from 3-point range this season, while each taking 2-3 three-point shots per game, MSU will have a Big Ten Championship/Final Four-caliber offense.

Tags: 3-point shooting, chris allen, durrell summers, kalin lucas