Players from the MSU bench react after freshman guard Durrell Summers scored a basket and drew a foul during the Purdue game Jan. 8 at Breslin Center. The Spartans play Ohio State on Friday in the Big Ten Tournament after suffering a 63-54 defeat Sunday in Columbus.
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Payback, pride on team's mind for Friday
To avenge its Sunday loss to Ohio State, the MSU men’s basketball team doesn’t have to look any farther than — well, Indianapolis.
The Spartans have their chance at revenge for the 63-54 collapse they suffered in Columbus this weekend as the Spartans (24-7 overall, 12-6 Big Ten) face the Buckeyes (19-12, 10-8) for the second time in a week.
“I’ve never really witnessed or gone through a period where you play a team back to back,” MSU head coach Tom Izzo said at his weekly press conference Monday. “But it’s the same for them as it is for us, so I don’t think it’s an advantage for either team.”
It’s the first time since the 1999-2000 season that the team faced an opponent twice in as many games.
That year, the team swept Northwestern in two regular-season games.
Ohio State and MSU will be featured in the four-five quarterfinal game of the Big Ten Tournament at 2:30 p.m. Friday.
MSU defeated the Buckeyes 66-60 Jan. 15 at Breslin Center. This is the first time the two teams have met in postseason play since 2003.
Izzo said his team played well for all but about five minutes of Sunday’s contest — just enough to surrender the lead and turn a strong road win and momentum into the tournament into a disappointing collapse and a standstill.
“What you’re talking about is you’ve got to win a game for our pride,” he said. “They’ve got more at stake because some people consider them still on the bubble. We’re playing more for our pride.”
Recurring problems
Just when things were looking to be moving forward for the Spartans in terms of their turnover problems, they were bitten by the bug again.
MSU had gone five conference games in a row without more than 11 giveaways before Sunday’s game, in which they had 21. The miscues resulted in 28 points off turnovers for the Buckeyes.
“The turnovers were a shame, really,” Izzo said. “I thought, in all honesty, we made poorer turnovers in the first half than we did in the second half. That is one thing, if you look at the games we’ve lost on the road, that are considered upset losses, that has been a common denominator in two out of the three.”
Final numbers
With another conference season coming to an end, number crunchers everywhere can rejoice in analyzing Big Ten teams’ performances.
The statistic that struck Izzo — and one he has referenced all season — has been MSU’s shooting percentage.
“We’ve led the league in field-goal shooting for five straight years,” he said. “That’s unbelievable.”
The Spartans led the conference in field-goal percentage, assists, rebounding defense and rebounding margin. They finished second in six other categories.
Published on Monday, March 10, 2008
Comments
Jason B
03/11/08 @ 10:14am
Let’s hope those statistics translate into a good run in the big dance. High field goal percentage and rebounding margin are always a good sign.
Jason C
03/11/08 @ 8:00pm
Let me say it for MSU Chicago (Illinois?)
All you other guys, go away! I want to be king here. Do not disagree with me or I’ll call you names!
Jason D
03/11/08 @ 8:03pm
Please! I really live in Chicago! Well, ... near there anyway … well, I wish I did … (honestly)
Don’t hurt my feelings
Jason Huh?
03/11/08 @ 8:28pm
MSU Chicargo Did Huh? disrespect you? I don’t think so Youd have to consider yor worth first & they didn’t! They don think yor smart enough to matter. welcome to the clubStop using hood words to describe your ultimate frustration/
Smokey
03/12/08 @ 10:22am
Wow….there are a lot of r-tards on this page today! OH and today is the season premiere of Southpark!! :)
lasky
03/13/08 @ 8:12am
So you two twits (ALUM &Chicago)can stop; read this article by Michael Rosenberg.
“Tom Izzo is letting the light in again. He does it every year at this time, after daylight saving begins, when the sun is still up during Michigan State’s afternoon basketball practices. Izzo makes sure the drapes are open. He wants to remind his Spartans that not everybody makes it through the long college basketball winter, but they always do.
Next week, Michigan State will make its 11th consecutive NCAA tournament appearance. That is the second-longest streak in Big Ten history and the fifth-longest active streak, behind Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky and Duke.
And Arizona is in danger of missing this year’s tournament.
And Kentucky was in danger until beating Florida last weekend.
In other words, Michigan State is one of the most stable contenders in the country. You might argue that MSU is not Kansas, Kentucky or Duke. To which I respond: That’s the point. Fifteen years ago, only a few people thought Michigan State was capable of this kind of continued success.
It’s something all MSU fans — and critics — should think about before complaining about the lack of a Big Ten title lately.
“If Kentucky and Arizona both didn’t make it, I don’t know who else is up there,” Izzo said. “I do once in a while look at that because you kind of always figure you’re not doing enough.”
Of course he feels that way. Izzo runs the most open, fan- and media-friendly program in the country, and he is always being told he isn’t doing enough. I don’t know how many MSU basketball followers feel that way. But Izzo seems incapable of tuning them out.
This week, Izzo delivered a What else do we have to do? speech that sounded familiar. We’ve all heard various versions of it the past few years.
This isn’t really about Michigan State basketball. It’s about a sports media culture that gets louder and more extreme every year. Every achievement is measured against a sliding scale of expectations — your achievements can and will be held against you.
It is a culture of absolutism. In this environment, teams don’t just win or lose — they overachieve or underachieve. Players don’t just have bad games — they choke.
Sometimes it feels like spectator sports are just a giant argument, which depresses me because I make my living in the middle of it.
Izzo makes his living in the middle of it, too. I would think, at this point, reasonable people could agree on the following points: He is one of the nation’s best college basketball coaches. His teams are resilient and tough, though often not as tough as he would like. The Spartans are always good and usually very good, but they have not been truly great in a few years.
So why not just enjoy a good season and hope for some March magic? Why suck the fun out of it?
Some fans won’t want to hear this, but the simple truth is that it’s much harder to recruit to Michigan State than to Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky or Arizona. Izzo said so himself after his team lost to North Carolina in the 2005 Final Four. He talked about how much harder it was to win at Michigan State and how perplexed he was that people had complained about a team that finished 26-7.
That night, in a dome in St. Louis, Izzo said he was going to have to reevaluate how he operated his program. He sounded like he might clam up — keep the media and fans at a distance, like the coaches at Duke and North Carolina and almost every other major program.
Now, three years later, his team is 24-7. Izzo is hearing all the same complaints and responding in the same way.
“What’s hard for me is I think I’m always defending,” he said. “I don’t think by nature (that) I’m an excuse guy. But if you defend, it is an excuse. I gotta learn to quit doing that.”
I don’t know what the rest of the month holds for Michigan State. But the Spartans are capable of winning the Big Ten tournament and making an NCAA tournament run.
“We’re good enough to beat anybody in our league — we really are,” Izzo said. “Unfortunately, we can be beaten, too.”
Hey, everybody can be beaten. That’s why sports are fun. It’s easy to forget that sometimes, and it’s easy to harp on Michigan State’s failings instead of its successes. In the sports world of 2008, more people need to let the sunlight in.
Contact MICHAEL ROSENBERG at 313-222-6052 or mrosenberg@freepress.com.