Ohio State Game Recap (1/25/09)
Posted by kj on Sunday, January 25th, 2009
MSU accelerates past Ohio State 78-67 in a 60-possession game. Statsheet box score.
This was, of course, a tale of two halves.
The tale of the first half was Durrell Summers single-handedly keeping the team afloat, scoring 16 of the team’s 26 points as the rest of the team struggled with turnovers and 3-point shooting against the Ohio State 3-2 zone. Even with Summers’ hot hand, I think many of us were right on the verge of abandoning hope, with nightmarish visions of every Big Ten team from here on out playing a zone defense against us for the next two months.
(Note: It occurred to me during the game that we’ve talked very little about missing Drew Neitzel this season. But we may have forgotten what a big factor his shooting/passing prowess was when teams zoned us up.)
The tale of the second half was as dominant a performance as you could possibly hope for in a Big Ten road game. MSU outscored Ohio State 52-36, led by Kalin Lucas’ 20 points, all of which came after the break. (Note: I trust Lucas will correct whatever academic issues led to his benching to start the game; his absence from the court for the first six minutes could have resulted in an even larger hole that MSU wouldn’t have overcome.)
Put it all together and you get this:
Rebounding was the only constant. MSU actually held the Buckeyes without a single offensive rebound in the first half. For the game, MSU put up yet another 50% offensive rebounding percentage figure. Rebounding is to basketball what base running is to baseball: It doesn’t go away when you’re in a shooting/hitting slump. Today, it led to 15 more field goal attempts for MSU than for Ohio State.
Goran Suton led the way with 9 rebounds, 5 of them offensively. Durrell Summers chipped in 3 offensive board to go with his career-high 26 points (on 6-9 three-point shooting).
Kalin Lucas was simply masterful in the second half, making five two-point shots–nearly all of them of the spectacular nature–and scoring seven points from the line.
Defensively, this wasn’t a great game for our Spartans. Ohio State scored over 1.10 points per possession. Evan Turner (19 points on 6-8 FG shooting), Jon Dielber (12 on 3-6 three-point shooting), William Buford (11 on 3-7 three-point shooting), and B.J. Mullens (12 on 5-9 FG shooting) all got more good looks at the basket than they should have.
But the defense held when it needed to, limiting Ohio State to just one field goal during a five-minute stretch starting at the 12-minute mark of the second half. MSU, meanwhile, scored 30 point over the game’s final 12 minutes. The difference in the two teams’ point-guard situations was evident late in the game.
Kudos to Suton, in particular, for his savvy defense on Mullens, who Roe, Ibok, and Gray had all been unable to guard.
And, remarkably, Ohio State actually ended up turning the ball over one more time than we did for the full game.
I’d guess many of the news stories about this game will talk about MSU “growing up” or “getting tougher” today. But let’s keep in mind this team is now 4-0 on the road in conference play; that’s more conference road wins than they accumulated in nine attempts last season.
This team was already tough. Wednesday night didn’t change that.
Next up: Another road game–this one at the scene of last year’s greatest tragedy, Iowa City. Thursday night, 7:00, ESPN/ESPN2 (still hasn’t been finalized, apparently).
P.S. There’s a lot of sentiment out there for basically benching Chris Allen in favor of Summers. I agree Summers should now clearly be the first perimeter guy off the bench. But Allen will need to be a factor at some point. Shooting strokes do come back, and Izzo depth cannot be abandoned.
That being said, the road back for Allen looks pretty long. He was pump faking and dribbling into double teams today in situations in which he normally would have shot the ball.
Filed in game recap10 responses so far
10 Responses to “Ohio State Game Recap (1/25/09)”
Mark in DCon 26 Jan 2009 at 10:05 am 1Agree that Neitzel would be great to have this year – he never seemed to suffer from a prolonged shooting slump so you could pretty much count on him coming through. Given the ups and downs of many of our other perimeter marksmen over the years, that’s a pretty valuable commodity to have.
Rebounding and winning the turnover battle won this game for us, and I can’t believe we won the turnover battle. That never happens, but I’ll take it. We’ve got at least two fairly solid road wins under our belts (OSU and Minnesota) which is better than we’ve done the last few years. Definitely an encouraging sign.
donaldoon 26 Jan 2009 at 10:20 am 2Considering that our road record in the Big Ten was 6-19 over the previous three seasons, this is a magnificent start. I was thinking that 6-3 on the road would be enough for the Big ten title, but with the Northwestern loss, we may need to go 7-2.
I’d like to see Summers start in place of Morgan to see if he can provide some early energy. Morgan often doesn’t get into the flow of the game early and may be more productive coming off the bench where he may get some favorable matchups.
Excellent analysis of the game. The second half exemplified the way this team can and needs to execute offensively.
danon 26 Jan 2009 at 12:13 pm 3The StatSheet chart really showed the difference in the game. The rest of the numbers were in favor of OSU, but because State stayed close, and dominated the Offensive boards, they were able to deal with the minor “defeats” in other categories.
impressive breakdown!!!
Monday Links | UM Hoops.comon 26 Jan 2009 at 12:32 pm 4[...] Ohio State Game Recap (1/25/09) MSU wins a big one in Columbus thanks to dominating the offensive glass yet again. [...]
ryanon 26 Jan 2009 at 2:36 pm 5For me, the problem with Allen isn’t so much the cold shooting. That happens. It’s that he doesn’t contribute anything else. Terrible on-the-ball defender, not active in getting into passing lanes, not a good help-side guy, no ability to rebound, not particularly active on offense, not a great passer or ball handler. Basically, he has to be scorching hot to have positive minutes. Summers isn’t great on the ball, but he is decent help-side, doesn’t mind diving for loose balls or wandering in among the trees for boards, and has a developing ability to drive and dish that this team needs. Even when he’s cold, he can still contribute. I’ve been far, far more impressed with Durrell than Allen from day one, and I think it’s high time he moves up in the rotation.
donaldoon 26 Jan 2009 at 3:04 pm 6Agree with you Ryan on Summers and Allen. I see Allen as one-dimensional. This team needs solid three point shooting, but perhaps among Summers, Lucas, and Lucious we can get those buckets. Each of those three add value in some other way(s) – defense, quickness, ball handling, driving the lane, rebounding, hustle.I have had a good feeling about Summers because he is multi-dimensional. I believe he can be a strong contributor the rest of this season and by next season be a consistent and dangerous scorer.
Mark in DCon 26 Jan 2009 at 3:31 pm 7Our three point shooting has been pretty good all year, largely due to Lucas and Summers shooting a good percentage (both 40 percent or better). Allen is still in the mid 30s percentage-wise so I’m not ready to throw him under the bus yet but clearly he needs to improve over recent performances. Until that happens I’m happy starting Summers in his place.
Suton is shooting 61.5 percent from 3 point land. I know we need his presence down low but it would be nice to find some more depth down there (basically someone who can fill in for him on the glass and as a low post scorer) so he could spend a little more time floating around the perimeter a la Granger. Either that or we could switch him and Summers once in a while – I’d bet Summers can out-rebound most of the guys that guard him, and might be able to post them up too. If they switch then Suton is left outside shooting over a 6′3″ guard.
ryanon 26 Jan 2009 at 3:32 pm 8I’d like to see a starting lineup of Lucas, Summers, Morgan, Roe (if he’s ready for 25-28 minutes), and Suton. Seems like I’ve seen a lot of terribly slow starts this year that need to be come back from, and I think this lineup helps that. When the play gets too loose, bringing in Walton and Gray instantly slows the game down and turns it into a halfcourt, possession game. Lucious spells Lucas. Dahlman, Green, Ibok, Thornton, and Allen all play as needed.
As hard as it is for me to say, I also don’t think it’s time to give up on Allen.
I do think he needs to be a six to eight minute guy until he figures out what he’s going to do when his shot’s not hitting.
SpartanDanon 26 Jan 2009 at 6:07 pm 9I’d agree we shouldn’t give up on Allen completely – but he definitely needs to see a serious reduction in minutes. I’m curious what the +/- was with Allen on the court vs. off yesterday, but I’d bet there’s a huge difference. We looked like a train wreck on both ends with him in the game and unstoppable without.
The Top Ten Performances of the 2008-09 Season | Spartans Weblogon 09 Apr 2009 at 8:56 pm 10[...] Durrell Summers at Ohio State 26 points on 6-9 three-point shooting, 4 rebounds From the game recap: “The tale of the first half was Durrell Summers single-handedly keeping the team afloat, [...]