Penn State Game Recap (2/1/09)
Posted by kj on Sunday, February 1st, 2009
The Nittany Lions bomb the Spartans into submission 72-68 in a 62-possession game. StatSheet box score.
Before we get to the insanity-inducing angst part, let’s start with a couple graphical aids.
First, the four factors graph:
The Spartans did what they always do–outrebound the other team–and they did what they don’t usually do–turn the ball over fewer times than their opponent. The net result of those two things was a 13-attempt advantage in the field goal department.
Penn State had to make up quite a bit in the field goal percentage department. And make it up they did:
Led by the incomparable Talor Battle (29 points on 19 FGA), Penn State posted an astonishing effective field goal percentage of 66.7% on 10-20 three-point shooting. Battle drained six three-pointers, nearly all of them from at least several feet behind the three-point line. And Jamelle Cornley (16 points on 11 FGA) and Stanley Pringle (1o points on 7 FGA) through in some astonishing trick shots of their own.
I don’t think any player has ever made Travis Walton look like a fool on defense the way Battle did tonight. He was simply and utterly unstoppable.
Penn State only recorded 10 assists on 27 made field goals. They scored through phenomenal individual effort, rather than MSU defensive breakdowns. In a 20-minute span (between roughly the six-minute marks of each half), the Lions put up 52 points.
Could MSU have stepped up offensively and matched the Nittany Lions blow for blow? In theory, yes. But they scored 68 points in a 62-possession game. That’s a very solid offensive performance, sufficient to win most Big Ten home games. The MSU players looked a little tight at times, but they never looked frazzled. And they had enough composure and moxie (with some help from Penn State’s horrific free throw shooting) to nearly pull off a 12-point comeback.
(That’s actually a minor consolation: The fact this team has shown the ability to come back from significant deficits late in games. It seems like the last couple years, we’ve never been able to close the gap in the final minutes if we’re down more than 3-4 points. We haven’t pulled a big comeback out yet, but it’s something that could be a factor down the stretch in the conference title race.)
In short, we didn’t exactly fold. Penn State was just that good today. If you’re going to point at any negative statistical indicator on offense, it has to be three-point shooting (5-20). Coming off two superb shooting performances, Durrell Summers was just 1-8 from beyond the arc today.
This may sound like excuse making, but, to me, both our losses in conference play have been on the fluky side. Fundamentally, we remain the best team in the conference.
OK, that’s the positive, analysis-based perspective.
Here’s the negative, fan-based perspective. Despite being the best team in the league through the first half of the conference schedule, we are now basically tied with Purdue for first place, with three teams just one game back. Our situation is analogous to being tied at halftime against a team that you’ve outplayed for the first 20 minutes. That situation almost always comes back to haunt you. (Arguably, that’s what happened today–although I didn’t see most of the first half.)
The bottom line on being just 2-2 at home, despite a 5-0 road record, is that any thoughts we might have had about a runaway conference title must now be dismissed. Karma will have none of it.
This is going to be a photo finish; the two games against Purdue both seemed destined to be epic battles. And Illinois, Minnesota, and Penn State are right in the mix, ready to grab the opportunity if neither we nor the Boilermakers can win 7 or 8 more games during the remainder of conference play.
Next up: A home game against Minnesota Wednesday night (8:30, BTN) that now looks like it’s of the distinctly “must win” variety.
P.S. Talor Battle is clearly the Big Ten Player of the Year at this point. But let’s not forget that Kalin Lucas is one of only two other players in the league that’s even in the conversation (Evan Turner is the other). He’s now scored 20 points or better in 6 of our 9 conferfence games. That ninth free throw may have bounced out–and I wish he could have gotten closer to the basket on his final-second jumper–but he’s still as clutch as they get.
P.P.S. I’m going to go ahead and assume that the use of the term “walking pneumonia” in reference to Raymar Morgan is not a good thing.
Filed in game recap16 responses so far
16 Responses to “Penn State Game Recap (2/1/09)”
SpartanDanon 01 Feb 2009 at 6:12 pm 1You would probably be correct about Morgan. I had it once (back in junior high) and could hardly get out of bed for five or six days. I can’t imagine trying to play basketball through it.
Also agreed on both losses being kind of fluky – if guys are going to rain 25- and 30-footers on you all day and they go in, there’s not much you can do. Hopefully we’re just getting those wacky games out of the way before one-and-done time.
MooTheKowon 01 Feb 2009 at 7:41 pm 2Biggest bummer about the games being flukey is that they still count as losses
. I hope MSU gets fired up and plays well the rest of the way. The downside of these fluke losses is that they now have no room for just playing bad for a game or two if they want to win the big ten. Also means they’re kind of hurting their chances for improved seeding in the NCAA when other teams around the nation (wake forest for example) have faltered against lesser competition.
huberton 01 Feb 2009 at 10:06 pm 3I just don’t believe in fluky. I did not see this game, but from accounts of it, it does seem like Penn state did outplay MSU by a healthy margin, and that it was close only because of the missed foul shots. You can say all you want that it was a wacky game, but Big Ten champions don’t lose these kind of games on their own floor. I hope that Morgan gets better soon, because I think this season could go south very quickly. Minnesota will really bring it on wednesday, the first of several big games. Meanwhile Purdue is red hot.
mkon 01 Feb 2009 at 10:18 pm 4Not so much depth for spartans: Are Thornton and Dahlman not trustworhty? Just like any other team, with one starter out (like Suton or like Morgan), team performance was very shaky and inconsistent. I wonder what would have happened to msu without Summers’ exceptional (and unusual) performance in previous games.
I am sure the players will do their best to regroup and move onto the next game. And I have no doubt on the coach’s ability. And I will continue to cheer for spartan players with all my heart till I see seniors hold big ten championship trophy.
spartanproduceron 01 Feb 2009 at 10:52 pm 5In this world of internet message board experts and talk radio, I realize everyone wants simple answers and single things to point their fingers at. But in a four point game over 124 possessions, there are a lot of things you can look at, from fluky three-pointers, to shots going halfway in and bouncing out (Lucas last free throw) to stolen balls deflecting to the other team. While our impressive wins didn’t make us the best team in the country, this loss doesn’t make us some team that’s all of a sudden in trouble.
How about a little perspective?? We’re halfway through the league schedule and we’re 7-2, on pace for 14-4, which should get at least a share of the league. If one month and one day ago, we had been told we’d be 7-2 but the losses were at Minny and at OSU, we all would have been pretty happy and not been surprised. So the fact we’ve played better than expected on the road and worse at home, is evening out. Fact is, with everyone healthy we’re a great team, with one of our big three injured, we’re a pretty good team, but one that has less margin for error.
Unlike last year’s loss to the Nittanys (51 FTs) this one doesn’t hurt as much because they earned it. I also think people are holding Penn State’s past mediocrity against them. What does that matter?? This year’s PSU team has two guys that would start for anyone in the league and is likely a tournament team.
I realize someone will probably fire off a response saying “it’s still a loss, blah blah blah” but how about a little perspective. The sky is not falling, we still have a great opportunity to win the league, make a tourney run and accomplish a lot. How many teams in the league would trade places with us right now?? I’m guessing everyone that’s not named Purdue.
kjon 01 Feb 2009 at 11:13 pm 6Hubert, I hear what you’re saying, but watch the highlights. Talor Battle simply could not be stopped. Generally, that sort of statement is an exaggeration, but in this case it’s literally true.
Could MSU have won? Yes, but it would have taken a flawless offensive performance of their own.
http://link.brightcove.com/ser.....9813710001
huberton 02 Feb 2009 at 8:10 am 7Thanks for the link. Battle obviously was hot, and PSU clearly was up for the game, a tribute, in some sense, to the spartans’ reputation. Nonetheless, and without being melodramatic, this is a flawed spartan team, which is mediocre on defense, lacks a consistent outside shooter, and has odd bouts of complacency, both within games and across them. Their vulnerability when upperclassmen miss games suggests one explanation: they are a very young team, and play like it when Suton or Morgan are out. For whatever reason, Walton does not have a huge influence on the team’s psyche.
The proof will be in the pudding. If they really do stay on course and finish 14-4 or 15-3, this game will have been a fluke. If they continue to drop odd games and finish 12-6, which I confess I now view as more probable, then we will know PSU’s great shooting was symptomatic rather than causal of the spartan woes.
I had a walking pneumonia about ten years ago, I took about 6 weeks to shake it completely. They may be without Morgan for a while…
Around the blogosphere | Fighting With a Vimon 02 Feb 2009 at 10:32 am 8[...] KJ from Spartans Weblog: [...]
Matadoron 02 Feb 2009 at 10:40 am 9I would say the anomoly is the lack of interior defense. I’m more troubled by all of the black dots 6 feet from the rim, than I am with the 30-40 foot 3’s.
DP99on 02 Feb 2009 at 1:32 pm 10hubert: every team is flawed. Even the ones that end up winning any kind of prize. Even the MSU teams that made Final Fours. Of course, MSU is lacking consistent front court depth. But at this point each of the front court starters have had to or may still be dealing with major injury or illness. One of the main contributers on the perimeter is going through an epic shooting slump. The collective set of sophomores and freshman on the perimeter is not experienced enough to handle defense consistently — this part we knew going into it.
huberton 02 Feb 2009 at 2:49 pm 11DP99 — don’t disagree with you. I was reacting to our colleagues who were suggesting that these two home losses were the result of some fluke, rather than because of flawed performances by the Spartans, which is my view.
Chrison 02 Feb 2009 at 3:53 pm 12Raymar is out all week acording to the Detroit Free Press. He only had 10 points against Minny in the first meeting. Wednesday has become a must win. Who is going to step up…
kjon 02 Feb 2009 at 5:03 pm 13Maybe “fluky” was too subjective a word to use to describe yesterday’s loss.
The bottom line is that we lost yesterday because we gave up too many points, not because we didn’t score enough points.
A major reason we gave up too many points was Talor Battle (and Pringle/Cornley) hitting a series of very-low-percentage shots. Beyond that, I guess it’s just a matter of how good you think this team should be on defense at this point. You have to be pretty darn good, though, to overcome 9-12 points your opponent scores on shots that have no business whatsoever going in the rim.
Tom Izzo’s take:
“It’s just a very disappointing game. I’ve never seen two losses with banked-in threes, 35-foot threes. I can’t really condemn those as not guarding, but we let them get hot there at the seven minute mark of the first half and that changed the whole game.”
Mark in DCon 02 Feb 2009 at 5:25 pm 14I didn’t see the game, but from the scatterplot of shots PSU made it sure looked like they hit 8 from well beyond the arc, and there were only 6 misses from out there. That is pretty good odds from extreme long range and seems somewhat “fluky” to me.
The fact that this has happened to us twice this year does kind of make me concerned that there is some common denominator: like we play poor perimeter defense, they get hot because of that, and then everything they throw up starts going in. Again, I didn’t see the game so I don’t know whether that’s a plausible explanation or not. We have been playing stellar perimeter D since the Big 10 season started but maybe we’ve had a couple of off nights in that area and it’s cost us.
Our D had been steadily improving in the Kenpom ratings until this game – we were in the top 40 before this weekend but are now sitting at 45.
Sparty Basketballon 02 Feb 2009 at 9:12 pm 15You can’t guard people 30 feet from the basket, but you can counter their long shots with an effective offense. Rather than blame the defense, I would say we didn’t have the right offensive game plan. I would have pounded the ball down low more instead of shooting a bunch of outside shots.
A MSU shot chart would be helpful because I know we were 5-20 from the 3-pt line, but we also had a bunch of shots either on the line or just inside it. It seemed like the only shots we had inside the paint were off of offensive rebounds.
Hoopraker » Blog Archive » Pat Forde Piles On Bielien & Other Miscellanyon 04 Feb 2009 at 11:31 am 16[...] Spartans Weblog tends to take a more sanguine approach and chalk up the losses to huge games by opposing players. Makes sense, but no doubt, Izzo will use the latest loss as an opportunity to teach even if he publicly discounts the 30 foot bank shot Talor Battle nailed on Sunday. [...]