Comments on: Penn State Game Recap (2/1/09)

By: Hoopraker » Blog Archive » Pat Forde Piles On Bielien & Other Miscellany

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:31:12 +0000

[...] 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. [...]

By: Sparty Basketball

Sparty Basketball — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 02:12:00 +0000

You 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.

By: Mark in DC

Mark in DC — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:25:34 +0000

I 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.

By: kj

kj — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:03:25 +0000

Maybe “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.”

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:53:21 +0000

Raymar 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…

By: hubert

hubert — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:49:34 +0000

DP99 — 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.

By: DP99

DP99 — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:32:05 +0000

hubert: 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.

By: Matador

Matador — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:40:35 +0000

I 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.

By: Around the blogosphere | Fighting With a Vim

Around the blogosphere | Fighting With a Vim — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:32:53 +0000

[...] KJ from Spartans Weblog: [...]

By: hubert

hubert — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:10:21 +0000

Thanks 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…