Ohio State Game Recap (1/8/09)
Posted by kj on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
The Spartans knock off the Buckeyes 67-58 in a 60-possession game. Official box score.
Events conspired against me tonight. I thought I had access to ESPN2, but apparently when you get ESPN and ESPN2 in the Bahamas, you really only get ESPN, as both channels were showing the ESPN feed. And my laptop was cranky; getting it booted up took me through halftime. And the actual ESPN2 feed I found on-line was, of course, experiencing technical difficulties with the feed from East Lansing.
Bottom line: I only saw the final 11 minutes of the game. So I don’t have much beyond the numbers again tonight. Here’s how those look:
Three-point shooting (8-17 for 47.1%) and rebounding (OffReb% of 40.0%) were once again Spartan strengths. Thus far in conference play, MSU is doing everything they can to take care of my preseason concerns about three-point shooting. Through three games, they’ve made 23 of 51 shots from beyond the arc for a very healthy shooting percentage of 45.1%. Tonight, six different Spartans connected on a 3-pointer. Free throw rate was also an MSU advantage, with six Spartans making at least two free throws.
Speaking of preseason musings, my Lucas-for-player-of-the-year prediction is looking a lot better than it did a couple weeks ago. Through three conference games, Lucas has scored 61 points on 6-10 three point shooting and 15-16 free throw shooting. The MSU offense is nearly unstoppable when Lucas is shooting the ball the way he is right now.
Bullets:
- The MSU defense held Ohio State’s top two offensive options, Evan Turner and Jon Diebler, to a combined 7-19 shooting line. William Buford (17 points on 3-6 three-point shooting) and B.J. Mullens (16 points on 8-14 shooing) were effective, but that wasn’t enough with the primary Buckey options held in check.
- Great to see Delvon Roe knock both of his two free throw attempts straight through the net.
- 10-9-8 rebounding night from the starting front line (Morgan-Suton-Roe). If those three guys all stay healthy (knock on wood), they’re too much for any Big Ten opponent to handle on the boards.
- Durrell Summers is struggling a bit as we get into slower nonconference play: 5-17 FG shooting in the last three games. If nothing else, he just needs to be a consistent spot-up three-point option. And he’s still contributing on the offensive glass (seven offensive rebounds in three conference games).
That’s it from me. Those of you who saw all (or at least most) of the game can chime in with expanded coverage.
Next up: A nonconference tilt with Kansas in East Lansing on Saturday (1:00 on CBS).
Filed in game recap8 responses so far
8 Responses to “Ohio State Game Recap (1/8/09)”
wife of a spartanon 07 Jan 2009 at 6:20 am 1Thought our defense was good again (a major relief). Suton looked tired at the end, his 3rd or 4th foul where he didn’t move his feet and then compounded by reaching in looked like a tired body/mind.
However REMEMBER Suton was actually our plan C recruit that year.
Plan A and B were Al Horford and Sean Pruitt. Horford gave them some good years but did not stay for his whole eligibility and Pruitt was excellent for the IL but had only a fair supporting cast last year.
IF we have a final four type year (need it so that every player recruited staying four years has played in a final four stays true), Suton will be a huge part of it.
Was also encouraged by Gray getting some additional minutes and by
his passing. If he can contribute solid defense, steady under- the- bucket offense and pass the ball out for an open teammate, he can be a key reliever especially to keep Suton fresh and if Suton or Roe are in foul trouble.
D. Green is still getting some minutes which i said to my husband does
not speak well to Herzog’s development. With Suton, ID, and Gray all
5th year seniors, Green should really have been prime to redshirt. The fact that he didn’t either means that Izzo felt a year not playing in
games would have hurt his development, psyche, something or that Izzo felt he would really need him. He did provide some quality minutes for blocks of time when Suton was hurt. If Herzog could contribute (very smart kid who is a redshirt sophmore so this is his 3rd
year in Izzo’s system), you have to think he would be playing some in meaningful parts of the game (ie Suton sitting with 2 fouls).
The 3 pointers made by 6 different players were very encouraging as was Chris Allen’s beautiful drive past his defender coming out to defend the 3 for a layup. Teams will have to account for all those 3 pt shooters which will stretch the defense as opposed to only having Neitzel nail down 3s consistentyl.
Puzzling that we had so much trouble with Osu’s aggressive zone, but radio announcers made good point that we go
there in 19 days and the team will not take this osu team lightly due to the troubles executing in this game.
Mark in DCon 07 Jan 2009 at 9:03 am 2I am loving our 3 point shooting accuracy and I really like that it is coming from multiple sources. It makes it hard for defenses to key on any one guy, and we don’t have to worry about one guy in particular having an off night. We had excellent perimeter D again so the guys seem to be developing in that area. Plus our rebounding continued to impress. All in all there’s not much to complain about.
I would have to second wife of a Spartan’s comment about Allen’s drive for a layup after faking a 3 pointer – that’s a dimension our perimeter shooters haven’t had for the past couple of years (no offense to Neitzel who is one of my favorite all time Spartans, but dribble driving wasn’t one of his many strengths). If Allen and Lucas can both stay consistent from the outside and also pose a threat to drive to the basket we will be very hard to stop on offense.
The only area of concern is that we were outscored by 10 in the paint, although this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that we outrebounded them and scored more second chance points as a result. OSU has some good shot blockers so I was anticipating a little difficulty scoring inside. Happily, we more than made up for our inside scoring woes with good outside shooting and getting to the line.
witless chumon 07 Jan 2009 at 9:49 am 3OT: Rexrode has a post featuring some late-90s tales of the Izzone.
http://noise.typepad.com/hey_j......html#more
Sound about true to you, KJ? I know you’ve said in the past you had season tickets in 1999-00, what about the previous year?
kjon 07 Jan 2009 at 11:04 am 4That was the only season I had lower bowl seats (they were in the regular student section, back when everything wasn’t Izzone). My seats in the season prior and season following were in the upper deck. So I can’t judge very well.
My general impression is that it’s gotten less intense over time as it’s become less exclusive. And Izzo (rightly) but the kaibosh (sp?) on the more obscene stuff at some point. If it is, in fact, getting louder now, that’s one more advantage in the Big Ten race this year.
SpartanDanon 07 Jan 2009 at 12:06 pm 5I was in it from ‘04-’05 to ‘06-’07. There were a couple of amazing games in there – Wisconsin ‘07 in particular, I remember barely being able to hear or speak for about half an hour after the game. That year was a little better than the previous two, at least.
Benon 07 Jan 2009 at 12:29 pm 6Ha, maybe I should have saved my old Izzone dissertation for this comment thread.
http://www.spartansweblog.com/.....mment-4342
witless chumon 07 Jan 2009 at 10:30 pm 7That was a good read, Ben, thanks for linking it.
My wife reminded me the other day of our favorite sign glimpsed in the stands. “If you can read this, you’re not Brett Petway.”
Spartans Weblog » Ohio State Game Previewon 23 Jan 2009 at 11:01 pm 8[...] last time these two teams met, MSU shot well from beyond the arc, pulled down some offensive rebounds, got to the free throw [...]