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A statistical look at Michigan State basketball, with a dash of football talk

Louisville Game Recap (3/29/09)

Posted by kj on Monday, March 30th, 2009

MSU dismantles Louisville 64-52 in a 56-possession game to advance to the Final Four.  StatSheet box score.

After a performance as thoroughly impressive as this one, it’s hard to know where to start.  So let’s start with what each of the eight guys who played double-digit minutes today contributed:

  • Goran Suton: 19 points on 3-5 three-point shooting, 10 rebounds, 4 assists.  Tom Izzo’s game plan in the half-court offense was to put Suton in the middle of the top two defenders in Louisville’s 2-3 zone and use Suton’s shooting/passing skills to break down the defense.  Suton responded beautifully, almost single-handedly keeping MSU even with the Cardinals through the first 20 minutes.  On defense, he completely shut down Samardo Samuels.  On his first three touches of the ball in the post, Samuels traveled, missed a shot, and got called for an offensive foul.  Samuels never bounced back and went scoreless for the game.
  • Kalin Lucas: 10 points on 2-3 three-point shooting, 5 assists, 3 offensive rebounds.  He turned it over 4 times, but he handled the Louisville full-court pressure well and got the ball to the right players in the right places throughout the game.
  • Travis Walton: 8 points, 2 assists, 2 steals.  After scoring only 2 points on Friday, Walton shot the ball with confidence in this game.  He was steady at the helm for the 4-5 minute stretch that Lucas sat out in the final 6-7 minutes (why so long?).  And he absolutely shut down Terrence Williams (1-7 FG shooting).
  • Durrell Summers: 12 points on 6 FGA (2-3 from beyond the arc) and 3 rebounds.  One fast-break dunk.  Two key free throws.  Three silky smooth jumpers.
  • Draymond Green: 6 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals.  Is there anything this man can’t do?  At one point, he was helping Walton bring the ball up the court against full-court pressure.  He made a fantastic driving bank shot just a possession or two after having his shot blocked driving the lane.  No fear.  And how about that offensive put-back that seemed to hang on the rim for about 3 seconds before dropping in?
  • Chris Allen: Only 2 points, but he was our hustle/glue guy tonight.  4 rebounds, 3 assists.
  • Raymar Morgan: He didn’t score, but he absorbed some fouls against Earl Clark (to put it somewhat euphemistically).  He was sort of a perimeter version of Idong Ibok in this game.  He now has five full days to get used to the mask (which he took off at halftime?) and find his jumpshot:
  • Delvon Roe: Only 2 points–but it was a big basket.  He scored on a pass ahead on the fast break, on a play on which most big men wouldn’t have stayed under control, to put us back ahead after Terrence Williams had converted a potentially momentum-changing alley-oop dunk to tie the game early in the second half.

Put it all together, and MSU put up 1.14 points per possession against arguably the best defense in the country.  Only one other Louisville opponent (Notre Dame) exceeded that mark this season.  Hitting 8 of 16 shots from beyond the arc went along way toward scoring so efficiently against the Cardinal zone.

Defensively, MSU seemed to suck the confidence right out of the Louisville players.  Earl Clark was great, scoring 19 points on 8-17 FG shooting.  The rest of the Louisville players, however, combined for just 10 made field goals (in 30 attempts).  MSU matched their physicality (and then some, as evidenced by the foul count).  And the absence of bad turnovers against the Louisville pressure meant we didn’t give up a single fast-break basket.  Unable to create easy baskets in the paint or in transition, Louisville had nothing to fall back on.  Williams and Clark ended up taking some ill-advised off-balance jumpers in the final 10 minutes.  And Rick Pitino seemed to give up–not even attempting a miracle comeback by fouling intentionally when we were still in the one-and one.

(Speaking of Pitino, did he show us some respect by having his players not trap as aggressively in the back court?  It seemed like he knew Izzo would have a precise plan for creating easy baskets if he double-teamed our ball-handlers.)

OK, here’s your four-factor graph:

The one factor Louisville beat us at–free throw rate–turned out to not be a big deal, as the Cardinals made only 10 of their 18 FT attempts.

Eight hours after this game ended, the result still seems somewhat surreal.  Five Final Fours in 11 years.  Perhaps more impressively, Tom Izzo has now reached the Final Four with three completely distinct active rosters.  (To do list: Figure out how many coaches have achieved that feat.)

A great coach.  A great team.  A great weekend.  A great week ahead.  Stay tuned.

Next up: The University of Connecticut Huskies.  Saturday, 6:07 p.m.  You may have heard of the venue: Ford Field, Detroit, Michigan.

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Filed in game recap15 responses so far

15 Responses to “Louisville Game Recap (3/29/09)”

  1. Lion 30 Mar 2009 at 1:33 am 1

    Now two conference champions down, big 12 and east, and if we get a chance to play the third, ACC?

    A great blog site …

    Celebrate it from west coast!

  2. msufan23on 30 Mar 2009 at 1:38 am 2

    dont forget about the Pac Ten Tourny champ Li.

    So happy for Walton he deserved that Final four as much as anyone wearing the Green and White

  3. SpartanDanon 30 Mar 2009 at 1:43 am 3

    By my count, 15 other coaches (five active) have had three entirely distinct rosters make the Final Four (on the assumption that any teams four years apart or at different schools have no common players, and any teams three years apart at the same school have at least one common player). Eight of those 15 (three active) have done it with four entirely distinct rosters, including Dean Smith (six) and Coach K (five).

    - John Wooden (UCLA ‘62, ‘67, ‘71, ‘75)
    - Dean Smith (UNC ‘67, ‘72, ‘77, ‘81, ‘91, ‘95)
    - Mike Krzyzewski* (Duke ‘86, ‘90, ‘94, ‘99, ‘04)
    - Denny Crum (Louisville ‘72, ‘80, ‘86)
    - Adolph Rupp (Kentucky ‘42, ‘48, ‘58, ‘66)
    - Roy Williams* (Kansas ‘91, ‘02, UNC ‘05, ‘09)
    - Bob Knight (Indiana ‘73, ‘81, ‘87, ‘92)
    - Lute Olson (Iowa ‘80, Arizona ‘88, ‘94, ‘01)
    - Rick Pitino* (Providence ‘87, Kentucky ‘93, ‘97, Louisville ‘05)
    - Jack Gardner (Kansas St. ‘48, Utah ‘61, ‘66)
    - Jerry Tarkanian (UNLV ‘77, ‘87, ‘91)
    - Forddy Anderson (Bradley ‘50, ‘54, MSU ‘57)
    - Jim Boeheim* (Syracuse ‘87, ‘96, ‘03)
    - Eddie Sutton (Arkansas ‘78, Oklahoma St. ‘95, ‘04)
    - Jim Calhoun* (UConn ‘99, ‘04, ‘09)
    - Tom Izzo* (MSU ‘99, ‘05, ‘09)

    (Source: http://web1.ncaa.org/web_files.....oaches.pdf )

    Only one coach with 5 or more Final Four appearances (Guy Lewis at Houston: ‘67, ‘68, ‘82, ‘83, ‘84) hasn’t done it with three distinct rosters.

  4. Bobon 30 Mar 2009 at 2:02 am 4

    This is the graphic on the front page at SI.com right now:

    http://elected.by.dogs.mirror......52c0bb.png

    I can only hope Lucas hears about slights like that and takes it to heart.

  5. Adamon 30 Mar 2009 at 2:08 am 5

    Jeez, Dan. Where would you even find that?

    And lol, Kalin Lewis.

  6. hooprakeron 30 Mar 2009 at 6:37 am 6

    What a great effort by your boys. No fear from the Spartans. Izzo is so good at getting players like Green and Summers and Lucious and Allen to step up an play critical minutes. He develops these kids so well throughout the season that when they’re inserted in tense games like yesterday’s, they respond with efforts that resulted in a second half whooping. You’re back home to play for it all!

  7. Markon 30 Mar 2009 at 7:45 am 7

    Well, while we haven’t had much success at Ford Field, hopefully with a 72,000 person crowd we can start to refer to Ford Field as “Breslin East”?

  8. huberton 30 Mar 2009 at 9:03 am 8

    Great recap. I was astonished at how easy this win turned out to be. It confirmed to my mind that Pitino is a great recruiter but a very average floor coach.

    I do have one question, though: how much of both Morgan and Roe’s issues are physical and how much psychological? A lot of people have noted Morgan’s poor tourney. From what I understand about Mono, I assume he is physically still subpar. But what about Roe? He seems like half the player he was in february. Are there physical issues we don’t know about? Or has he hit some kind of freshman wall?

    One of the truly amazing thing is that these last two victories have come despite getting basically no production from either player. That is just another dimension to Izzo’s amazing job this year. But, jeeze, I’d feel a lot better about MSU’s chances next weekend if I knew Morgan and Roe would show up.

  9. pdwon 30 Mar 2009 at 9:30 am 9

    @Mark: Not so fast on declaring Breslin (directional). If MSU wins the national semi-final and even the National Championship on Monday, they’re 2-2 lifetime at Ford Field.

    Not exactly ownership.

  10. Joeon 30 Mar 2009 at 10:22 am 10

    @ Li

    Technically (I saw UNC and Duke fans going round and round on ESPN message boards about this): UNC was not the ACC champion. The ACC champion is the winner of the ACC tournment. The ACC does not award a “regular” season championship. So, in fact the Spartans are the last conference champion standing.

  11. Chrison 30 Mar 2009 at 10:31 am 11

    Only 56 possesions was the slowest game of the year by 3 possesions! So much for the vaunted Louisville defense. Another masterful game plan by Izzo. Most over rated story of the weekend will be us playing a home game. The atmoshphere is terrible at Ford Field. Is there any video of the celebration at the Breslin last night?

  12. Mark in DCon 30 Mar 2009 at 10:51 am 12

    Great win. Hats off especially for Suton and Walton, who both played great in this game. Walton is absolutely a special player on defense – he kept Terrence Williams in check all game long. Just stick Walton on the other team’s best perimeter scorer and forget about the guy – you can virtually guarantee he won’t have a good game. Suton has been a scoring machine. I can’t believe a week ago I was saying he shouldn’t be shooting from the perimeter – he is on fire right now. Plus he is still rebounding and playing great post D. Keep shooting big guy!

    The press was a non-factor. Louisville is a somewhat pedestrian team on offense and if they are not getting some fast break points off that press then they have trouble scoring against good half court defenses. Today our ball handling was superb thanks to Lucas, Walton, and Lucious. Lucious got into trouble picking up his dribble in no-man’s land once, but that that was his only real miscue. He made a timely three pointer to make up for it though and played well overall. Lucas was his normal great self. Walton seems to finally have gotten the turnover issue that plagued him his first couple of seasons under control and with his D and timely scoring has had a fantastic all around tournament.

    Allen didn’t score much but he did a lot of little things like tracking down loose balls, rebounding, and helping break the press that don’t show up in the stats but are valuable. It would be great to see him start hitting his shots but as long as he’s making hustle plays he deserves some minutes – right now we seem to have plenty of scoring options. Summers had the hot hand today and played a good all-around game too with some rebounds and good D. Green continues to impress with his rebounding and timely scoring. He’s light years ahead of where I expected him to be at this point. I cannot believe we are in the Final Four again – Fantastic!

    This win was easier than I ever thought it would be – Louisville just seemed to have no answer for our D. It seemed like they were expecting a repeat of the Arizona game and when that didn’t happen the fight just went out of them.

    I’m not sure how much those L’ville fans slipped the refs at halftime, but the striped ones’ performance in the second half was atrocious. I don’t mind a crew that calls a tight game as long as it goes both ways, but they were allowed to reach in and bump our ballhandler coming up the court with no-calls all game, while we got every little bump called on us. Very one sided but their poor performance at the line and our depth made it a non-issue, thank goodness. The team has exceeded my expectations and punched their ticket to the championship weekend. They deserve to be listed up there with some of the other all time great Spartan teams.

  13. Uncle Omaron 30 Mar 2009 at 1:47 pm 13

    What I find hilarious about all this is that the experts don’t seem to realize the psychological aspects of playing against MSU, especially if the opponent is an up-and-down-pressing team. Those teams are not really good at either offense or defense. If they turn an inferior opponent over in the backcourt 10 times a game and score 25 points off turnovers if inflates both their offensive and defensive efficiency. If they actually have to play defense for 25-30 seconds per possession they eventually tire of this. Half court defense is, after all, too much like work and no where near as much fun as bullying an undermanned opponent. And on the other end, the idea of actually having to run plays and try to get open shots for 30 seconds at a time isn’t much fun either. Certainly not as much fun as running in for uncontested dunks. And so, with ten minutes to go in the game, the whole enterprise loses its appeal and the players look just like Louisville’s did on the bench yesterday–Gobsmacked. You would think that someone like the CBS and ESPN talking heads who have been watching basketball all their lives and are paid to do it would figure this sort of stuff out.

    Incidentally, UConn scares me because they are a lot like MSU in that they play defense and are not afraid to go deep in the count. That said, a RedBulled-up Idong Ibok could could certainly give Thabeet fits for about 12 minutes and disrupt the entire UConn day.

  14. Mark in DCon 30 Mar 2009 at 3:53 pm 14

    More love for Suton from Basketball Prospectus:

    http://www.basketballprospectu.....icleid=624

  15. The Top Ten Performances of the 2008-09 Season | Spartans Weblogon 09 Apr 2009 at 8:56 pm 15

    [...] Goran Suton vs. Louisville 19 points on 3-5 three-point shooting, 10 rebounds, 4 assists From the game recap: “Tom Izzo’s game plan in the half-court offense was to put Suton in the middle of the top [...]