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

Northwestern Game Recap (1/3/09)

Posted by kj on Sunday, January 4th, 2009

OR”How to recap a game you didn’t actually watch.”

1. Embed a graph

Offensive rebounding carries the day again.

2. Cite some statistics from the box score

  • Raymar Morgan leads the way with 22 points on 13 FG attempts and 13 rebounds.  Five turnovers, though.
  • Nine-for-16 three-point shooting for MSU, with Allen, Lucas, Morgan. and Summers all contributing from beyond the arc.
  • Six rebounds in 18 minutes for Delvon Roe (four offensively).  He must be recovering pretty well from the ankle sprain.,
  • Nine-for-29 three-point shooting for the Wildcats.  Apparently, MSU forced them into some tough looks from the perimeter.

3. Quote one of your readers

My first impressions: turnovers were the only thing keeping this close in the first half (7 to 2; 6 each in the second half). Rebounding was the big key for us – we had a ton of easy second-chance buckets. The fast break was productive as well. Raymar was an absolute beast – 22 pts on 13 shots (and two FTs), 13 boards (although he also had five turnovers). Lucas went for 17 (albeit on 14 shots and 5 FTs) and 9 assists.

Thanks, SpartanDan et al.

4. Make on obvious observation

Being one of only two teams in the conference with two wins to date–with both of those wins coming on the road–is very encouraging.

Next up: A home game against Ohio State on Tuesday night (7:00, ESPN2).

P.S. If there aren’t enough numbers for you here, check out Devin’s post on pre-conference Big Ten player efficiency ratings.

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3 Responses to “Northwestern Game Recap (1/3/09)”

  1. GBBoundon 05 Jan 2009 at 8:46 am 1

    Well…with these 2 road wins and our performance therein, KenPom now has projected MSU to have a 13-5 Big Ten record.

    In a similar vein, MSU is now #6 in the RPI with a SOS of 12. Further, Big Ten teams are both rated highly by KenPom and by the RPI. 10 of 11 teams are in the RPI Top 100 and 8 Big 10 teams are in the RPI top 50, with only Indiana dragging the Big Ten down. Similarly, other than Indiana, all Big Ten teams are in KenPom’s top 70.

  2. Mark in DCon 05 Jan 2009 at 10:38 am 2

    I like our domination on the glass in the first two games. Even better, our perimeter defense seems to finally have come around – we’ve held both of our big 10 opponents to under 30 percent on 3 point attempts (our two point fg defense hasn’t been too bad either). If we can keep that up I see us winning a lot of games.

  3. kjon 05 Jan 2009 at 11:28 am 3

    That’s some soothing data for us statheads, GBB.