To panic or not to panic?
Posted by kj on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
Thursday Night Links
- Northwestern Scored the Night’s Biggest Upset
TAFKATBTW. - Shocker in Spartyville – Cats upset MSU 70-63
Lake the Posts says biggest Northwestern win since 1994. - Just Play Ball
Dylan on the Wolverines’ recent struggles. - What’s the Point?
Eleven Warriors on the Buckeyes’ limited point guard options. - Don’t go buying dancing shoes just yet…
Crispin and Cream on the Lions’ NCAA chances. - The Big Ten Network Sucks At Making Obamicons
Indeed. - Does Experience Matter in College Basketball?
Another StatSheet goodie. MSU ranks as 4th most experienced team in Big Ten. Wisconsin is #1.
Top Ten Reasons Not to Panic About a Home Loss to North-Freakin’-Western
10. We’re still in first place in the conference. Alone.
9. At some point, everyone will have had the flu and we’ll be done with that, right?
8. Goran Suton in conference play: 11 points and 10 rebounds per game, 59.8% eFG%.
7. Prediction: Kalin Lucas will not turn the ball over six times in a game again as a Spartan.
6. A loss to Northwestern won’t look nearly as bad on our tournament resume as it would in most years.
5. We have only two games left against teams that play the 1-3-1: home to Penn State and at Michigan. And Michigan doesn’t play it all that well.
4. Eight straight games with a team OffReb% of 38% or better.
3. Kenpom likes us in our next six games.
2. Tom Izzo has all the material he’ll need to motivate the players in practice for the next month.
1. Last year was last year. This year is this year.
Coffee Talk: Agree? Give us some more reasons not to fret. Disagree? Tell us why we should be freaking out.
Related: How many regular season conference wins are you expecting at this point?
Filed in coffee talk, commentary, links13 responses so far
13 Responses to “To panic or not to panic?”
Kurton 23 Jan 2009 at 12:21 am 1It was an uncomfortable loss, certainly. Annoying to watch, certainly. But I don’t really think it’s indicative of any dark clouds on the horizon. I’m not worried at all. Hated the loss, but not worried about the team. If things remain unchanged a few games from now, maybe you start to think about panic. But at this point, not even close.
Nickon 23 Jan 2009 at 2:54 am 2I’ve gotten more philosophical about these low points as I’ve gotten older. (Also, I’m a philosopher, so that helps…) A few years back an MSU team lost at home to Toledo. A few years before that an MSU team lost to Wright State. Why?! For the love of God, why?!?!
Occasional weird losses to clearly inferior teams are part of the baseline for any college basketball program. That MSU lost this particular game was unexpected; that MSU would lose a game of this nature sometime within a broad timeframe is perfectly normal.
The time to panic is when a pattern becomes apparent. Unfortunately, there does appear to be a pattern here. MSU is losing to RPI top 100 teams when one of their big men isn’t in the lineup and/or functioning. MSU needs a healthy frontcourt to make this season what we all hope it will be.
huberton 23 Jan 2009 at 6:10 am 3I’m not worried, but I am going to pay close attention to the next game. if they lose at Ohio State, you know the pressure will build on this team very quickly. the following game is no easy game either — Iowa is tough at home.
Nick the philosopher is right that the team is vulernable on the front line. Largely unoticed was how totally Gray disappeared against Northwestern, after all the brave talk of having turned a corner. Also, I confess, I thought the team would be getting more out of Roe at this point. Am I a born pessimist or has he hit some kind of wall?
kjon 23 Jan 2009 at 8:22 am 4Part of is that neither Gray nor Roe got much PT in the second half, as Izzo generally went with Suton and four perimeter guys to try to keep up with Coble outside.
witless chumon 23 Jan 2009 at 9:15 am 5I’m with Kurt pretty much.
I voted 15-3. I think MSU will rebound from this and go on another winning streak, but we’ll lose two games with some combination of at Michigan, at Purdue, Wisconsin and at Illinois.
Mark in DCon 23 Jan 2009 at 9:18 am 6I’m not too panicked and if we win at Ohio State that basically counterbalances this loss (it would be another road win against a reasonably good big ten team).
I’m somewhat comforted by the fact that we were undermanned (I’m hoping that some other guys were feeling under the weather but no mention has been made of it if they were) and have not been practicing well. I’m guessing that we will be practicing well for the next few weeks. I think it was a classic case of the guys getting too comfortable with success. As Izzo has said, great teams shouldn’t need a bad loss to motivate them, but hopefully this will be good for the practice intensity.
My main concern is Allen – we need to have someone other than Lucas who is accurate from 3 point range. He needs to find his stroke and start knocking down perimeter jumpers.
I’m also concerned that we’re thin on the front court on offense. We have plenty of big defensive bodies but Morgan and Suton are the only guys that provide any offensive punch in the post.
I chalk this up to playing poorly because we got complacent. If we look lackluster in our game tomorrow then it’s time to start worrying.
Sparty_in_Ohioon 23 Jan 2009 at 9:44 am 7It is nice to read reasonable comments about the loss to NW. I think everyone agrees that it was ugly to watch and left us all feeling a little empty inside. To end the streak at the Bres to NW was hard to swallow but a home loss was going to happen eventually. I just didn’t expect it to happen this year and not to NW!
This loss does not mean that dark clouds are on the horizon (thanks kurt) and I do not think you can make an argument that this loss constitutes a pattern. If you have been watching Izzo and his teams over the last 14 years you will notice that while he was upset by this loss he was not over the edge angry. That says a lot to me. There have been times when he has been so angry that he has called his team out more than he did this time. I remember hearing phrases like “We are not as good a team as we think we are”, “This team has a lot of faults”….I do not hear him saying that.
I still think that this team should be able to finish 15-3 in the conference. Anyone who thought MSU would run the table was drinking too much green cool-aid.
Go Green! Go White! Go Spartans!
spartanproduceron 23 Jan 2009 at 10:28 am 8no need to panic because
–we still have the most talent league
–we still have the best (or one of the best) coaches in the league
–the rest of the league looks like it’s going to beat on each other (see Minnesota’s rise to the top and quick fall back into the middle)
do we have issues?? of course, every team does. But we rebounded and improved after the UNC debacle and I trust we will do so again. In recent years the league champ has had very few losses but with the bottom of the league being better (with the exception of IU) that’s not as likely. 14-4 should win it, and we’re still in the best shape to accomplish that.
It also appears that our finale with Purdue may settle it, as they’re playing much better (and are getting healthier)
TMadison25on 23 Jan 2009 at 10:55 am 9The loss was tough, for sure, but a loss that hopefully this team will learn from. After the Penn St. near-comeback in the 2nd half and the butterfinger guard play against NW, raise your hand if you’re uber concerned for the game against U of M in 2 1/2 weeks?
At 15-3, I’d be ecstatic. 14-4 seems most likely. 6 road games left, many against solid teams and all of which we lost our last time visiting (except Illinois), so dropping 3 games to any of these teams isn’t unreasonable.
kjon 23 Jan 2009 at 2:51 pm 10FWIW, KenPom now projects MSU, Illinois, and Purdue all at 13-5 in conference play. No one else is projected to win more than 10 games.
Mark in DCon 23 Jan 2009 at 4:23 pm 11I really don’t mind dropping this game as embarassing as it is to lose to NW, as long as we wind up with a share of the Big 10 regular season title, beat Wisconsin in our one meeting this year, and split with Purdue. A win over U of M would also be nice. However, if this game is the reason we finish a game back from the league champion, my feelings will change. If we can’t beat Purdue at least once despite a home and home with them, but then we wind up tied with them at the end, I’d feel like they were the real champion despite an equivalent record.
Samon 23 Jan 2009 at 4:30 pm 12I really see the Northwestern game as a statistical outlier, something that has to happen once in a while, with the turnovers and the way the 3-point shooting favored Northwestern (some of those shots were incredible!)
If we played like that against Ohio State, then statistically(!), we’d still beat them.
kjon 23 Jan 2009 at 4:36 pm 13And I think you still have to have faith in this team’s ability to find ways to score late in close games. MSU was creating good shots (Lucas, in particular) in the last 10 minutes right up until those back-to-back long three-pointers by Thompson and Moore.