Wisconsin Game Recap (2/22/09)
Posted by kj on Sunday, February 22nd, 2009
The Spartans stick it to the Badgers 60-51 in a 59-possessions game. StatSheet box score.
Let’s start with what still worries me after this game: Three-point shooting. MSU made just 2 of 9 attempts from beyond the arc, with both makes coming in the final minutes of the game. That’s our fourth straight game with 3 or fewer 3-point makes. That’s not sustainable. Ultimately, we have to have a couple 3-point shooting threats to keep defenses honest. Otherwise, you have to execute with near perfection to create good looks near the basket.
The good news? We did execute with near perfection for the final 12 minutes of today’s game. Here are some of the stats from the second half:
- 12-19 two-point shooting vs. 2-8 for Wisconsin.
- An 18-10 advantage on the boards.
- An 8-4 advantage in turnovers.
Combined with the (much less stellar) first half stats, you get this:
I thought MSU’s defense was very good for all 40 minutes. There were a few lapses that lead to open 3-point looks for the Badgers, but for the most part MSU stayed in front of the Badgers and forced them to try to create shots one on one late in the shot clock. Take away the 10 or so points we gave Wisconsin on bad turnovers and free throws off MSU fouls on the offensive end, and the Badgers’ offensive stats would look even more anemic.
Despite only scoring 2 points, Travis Walton made huge contributions on both ends of the court–particularly in the final 12 minutes. He made 4 steals, leading the defensive pressure that flustered Wisconsin and helped turn the momentum to our advantage in the second half. And he had 6 assists against zero turnovers. That play Izzo ran three straight trips down the court with Walton sprinting through screens like Drew Neitzel was bizarre to watch, but it worked, as Walton made superb entry passes to Goran Suton to create easy baskets.
Suton was a warrior. After not starting the game (apparently to reward Tom Herzog–he of the graceful reverse layup–for his hard work in practice), Suton posted 16 points and 10 rebounds–most of them in the second half. He pulled down a couple huge offensive rebounds, as did Raymar Morgan (5 rebounds in 17 minutes), during the comeback from 12 down. Give Suton credit for keeping his composure after the airballed 3-pointer (his third 3-point miss of the game) and leading the team to victory.
Kalin Lucas added another Player-of-the-Year performance to his resume’, scoring 17 points on 8-14 FG shooting. (It seemed like Izzo sat him for a couple long stretches, but the box score says he played 34 minutes.) In a defensive struggle, Lucas was one of only two players on either team (Delvon Roe was the other) to make more than half of his FG attempts.
Finally, let’s talk about Chris Allen. All game, my brother-in-law and I wanted Allen to just shoot the ball when he first caught the ball behind the 3-point line. Instead, he’d put in on the floor and allow the defense to adjust. When he did finally shoot a 3-pointer directly off the pass, he nailed it. Maybe this game can be the start of Allen’s resurgence: 8 points on 7 FG attempts and 4 assists in 23 minutes. Hard to believe he only turned it over once, though, as he looked shaky with the ball on numerous occasions.
This was an enormous win. When Marcus Landry hit the 3-pointer to put Wisconsin up 12, I thought we were done. A loss would have been a huge psychological blow. But I underestimated this team’s resilience. All season, they’ve shown the uncanny ability to score points in the clutch. Of our five losses, 3 were blowouts and 2 were the result of giving up too many points late (many of them of the fluky kind)–not a result of scoring too few points.
This game doesn’t make up for the Big Ten Tournament loss last year–but it helps. And, just maybe, this win will be the difference in winning a Big Ten championship (or winning it outright).
Next up: A home game against Iowa Wednesday night (8:30, BTN).
P.S. Blake and GBBound tied for the DVD, both picking Lucas to score 17 points. Given my current state of exuberance, I can’t stand the thought of denying the prize to either of them. So they both win. I’ll have to come up with another prize for one of the postseason contests. Send me your mailing addresses, sirs.
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Filed in game recap21 responses so far
21 Responses to “Wisconsin Game Recap (2/22/09)”
GBBoundon 22 Feb 2009 at 8:53 pm 1As much as I would like the DVD, Blake chose Lucas before me, and I later noticed it (see around post 31) and changed my pick to Lucas for 15. So, Blake should be the sole recipient.
On another note, this is the second game in a row where MSU has made less than 12% of their 1st half attempts from beyond the three point line. Its like they are the anti-Michigan.
Kendallon 22 Feb 2009 at 9:19 pm 2Izzo said in his post game radio address that he felt bad for failing to get Herzog in the game at purdue. He said it was his mistake, and this was his way of making up for it. Herzog works very hard in practice with Garland, trying to get better, and work on his game.
Heathon 22 Feb 2009 at 9:28 pm 3Great point on those Walton plays. They seemed very strange, but ultimately resulted in successful possessions.
Machanidason 22 Feb 2009 at 10:01 pm 4When was our last comeback win like this? It seems like its been a long time.
Also, any thoughts on being there in person? I wasn’t paying too much attention to the crowd during the surge but it must have been incredible…
MooTheKowon 22 Feb 2009 at 10:03 pm 5KJ – in all fairness – MSU isn’t that far away from being a decent three point shooting team. The problem is they had a ton of shots that were inches inside the 3 point line (at least it felt like that). Made a bunch of ‘em it seemed – but all only 2.
Benon 22 Feb 2009 at 10:07 pm 6And, while Walton only scored two points, he did it in style. The hesitation dribble/layup was probably the most skillful offensive play I’ve seen him make in his MSU career. (It was at least the most visably skillful one.) It came in a big time in the game, too.
Travis has, on the whole, been a joy to watch this season.
Seeron 22 Feb 2009 at 10:19 pm 7Without looking at the box score, IIRC from the stats I saw while at the game, MSU had as many turnovers as made baskets in the first half. A tale of two halves indeed, and the great news is that the good half is the one leading into the Iowa game.
SpartanDanon 22 Feb 2009 at 11:00 pm 8Moo brings up a good point – I’ve seen us jack up at least three or four 20-foot 2-pointers every game. It’s like they still haven’t adjusted to the new line.
huberton 23 Feb 2009 at 12:15 am 9Wow, Wisconsin basically choked, Maybe Izzo is getting to their fragile psyches… All kidding aside, MSU’s pressure seemed to tire the Badgers, and it paid dividends in the last quarter of the game. At the end, they seemed really gassed. If only MSU had a reliable outside shooter, they would be totally dynamite. Still, it was good to see Lucas’ killer instinct at the end, and Suton’s classic late season senior’s game, in which he fought for every ball.
The refs still managed to call more fouls on MSU than on Wiscy, and only one single foul on Landry. That is simply amazing to me. The slower, less athletic team that plays a perimeter game on offense got called for fewer fouls… on the road. MSU got called for about 5 off the ball fouls, Wiscy not a single one. It’s all very counter-intuitive.
kjon 23 Feb 2009 at 7:09 am 10Machanidas, the crowd was pretty jacked up during the comeback. It was as loud as its been at any game I’ve been to in several years.
Moo, good point on the long 2-pointers. The main problem is that I don’t sense any of the players are shooting w/ confidence from the perimeter right now. Summers was the one guy, but didn’t knock down any outside shots yesterday. Running Lucas off some picks might make some sense, as he seems to shoot it well off the pass vs. the dribble.
Per Joe Rexrode:
By the way, after the game, Bo Ryan pulled Suton aside and, according to Suton, said this: “Go get a championship, you guys deserve it and it’s your time.”
http://noise.typepad.com/hey_j.....-down.html
witless chumon 23 Feb 2009 at 8:49 am 11Perhaps Bo’s heart grew three sizes that day?
I was disappointed we didn’t get any sideline shots of his trademark ‘what planet did you just teleport in from, ref?’ gape.
Couldn’t pick a better team to beat to stay in first place. Too bad the Buckeyes couldn’t help us out.
Suton and Lucas were huge and for all the talk of Allen’s confidence and hesitation, he shot that transition three like the most confident guy on the planet.
It was nice to see Roe make one very athletic move after a feed from Walton, I believe it was off one of the Travis Neitzel plays. And Herzog!
We better correct the the inbounds pass thing. Wisconsin can’t be the only team able to take advantage of that.
The full court pressure should be a more-often used tactic, too. Even if we don’t create turnovers (we did get one of the press, though ESPN missed it so I don’t know what happened) let’s use our depth and try to tire the other team out.
Jasonon 23 Feb 2009 at 9:04 am 12I liked seeing Walton running around on the offensive end. It seemed to be much more effective then him camping at the 3-pt line where everybody knows he won’t be shooting. This way his guy gets tired of chasing him on this end and has the B10 Defensive Player of the Year (?) in his grill on the other.
Nice to see Suton respond to Izzo’s tounge lashing. I’ve always thought he got a lot out of himself for not being the most talented, now he just needs to make the three a secondary weapon, not primary. He had some nice “D” in the post too, much better than against Purdue.
We have the horses, let’s use more of the full court press!
Chrison 23 Feb 2009 at 9:06 am 13Classy words from Bo Ryan. Makes it harder for me to hate him as much as I do. Completely agree with the full court press. Even if it doesn’t create turnovers, it make it difficult for a slower team to get into their offensive sets.
zacharyon 23 Feb 2009 at 9:44 am 14i actually really enjoyed watching allen attack the basket a little, if he cant score shooting, i have no problem with him getting fouled while driving to the rim, he had a few nice takes.
his shot look so pure, its gonna start falling one of these days.
that three ball near the end of the game was beautiful.
Mark in DCon 23 Feb 2009 at 10:48 am 15I liked what running Walton off screens did for our offense – he did look Neitzel-like minus the touch from outside (which is a big minus) but had some good assists coming off screens.
As long as he keeps the turnovers down like yesterday, I also like the idea of giving Walton some time (not all game, but say 8-10 minutes per game) running the offense. Lucas at this point seems to be the only guy with confidence in his outside shot so if we can get him some open looks off screens it would help loosen up opposing defenses.
This was a fun win – I loved the way we came back from 12 down. It showed a lot of resilience, which we haven’t always seen in years past. I do find the lack of perimeter shooting a little troubling still. We were doing fine until the Indiana game and since then it has fallen off a cliff. The frustrating part of it is that we’ve got at least three options – Allen, Lucas and Summers – who have shown that they can hit threes consistently. Ideally, that would mean that when one of them is in a slump the others should be able to pick up the slack.
I’m somewhat optimistic the shooting will come back around since we looked good earlier in the season. Hopefully it will happen by the Illinois game because I don’t see us beating them in their house without some good perimeter shooting. It always feels good to beat Wisconsin.
Walterson 23 Feb 2009 at 11:16 am 16@KJ: Bo Ryan only said that as a distraction while the Badger managers were plundering wallets and jewelry from the Spartans’ locker room.
Mark in Chicagoon 23 Feb 2009 at 1:36 pm 17I am not as concerned about the 3-point shooting, since B10 defenses are clearly adjusting to what the Spartans do. There isn’t really a consistent inside threat (although Roe and Suton both have their moments) and so teams are spreading out and taking away the 3-point shot. Plus the caliber of opponent (and the defense) is better than earlier in the B10 season with the exception of IU. Here are their 3-point attempts by B10 game:
MIN: 18
NW: 16
OSU: 17
PSU: 15
ILL: 14
NW: 21
OSU: 21
IOW: 9 (didn’t need the 3 in this blowout)
PSU: 20
MINN: 12 (another blowout)
IU: 21 (close until the 2nd half)
UM: 14
PUR: 8
WIS: 9
I think the open 3-point looks will be there in the NCAA tourney, since teams won’t be as familiar with MSU’s many sets and plays. We shot a good percentage early in the B10 season, so I think we’ll be ok. However, MooTheKow makes a great point that we seem to have an abnormally high number of 20-foot jumpers.
Jasonon 23 Feb 2009 at 2:17 pm 18I also like Walton at the point, but I think that was only because Lucious was sick. Check out the minutes:
Lucas – 34
Walton – 24
Summmers – 24
Allen – 23
Lucious – 1
Nice balance between Summers and Allen who I consider interchangeable (?), but Allen’s ball handling is scary. I think if those four (excluding TW) each went for about 3 or 4 three point attempts per game we would be fine. Goal is to get everyones confidence high at the same time!
From Statsheet, we avg 5/15 and opponents 6/20, so net effect is about the same.
Rob Y.on 23 Feb 2009 at 3:44 pm 19what is up with the Izzone.? those guys were a non factor during most of the game. You folks get the good seats in exchange for making a little noise during the game. Even the “WEAK” part was for the most part weak.
Oh sure.. during the comeback you were whooping it up… but so was everyone else. I say perform or cough up your ringside seats.
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