The Spartan men’s basketball team may have to gun down Big-Ten-leading No. 16 Ohio State on Sunday at Breslin Center without its most effective weapon available.
Sophomore guard Marcus Taylor could still be shelved for the Spartans’ (13-9 overall, 4-5 Big Ten) 1 p.m. tipoff against the Buckeyes (17-4, 8-2) due to a mild concussion suffered last Sunday at Illinois. Taylor is MSU’s leading scorer, averaging more than 15 points a game.
And after being held to their lowest scoring output of the season in Wednesday’s 61-49 loss at Northwestern, Spartan head coach Tom Izzo said freshman guards Chris Hill and Kelvin Torbert and freshman guard/forward Alan Anderson, have to carry more of the offensive load.
“Our freshmen are going to have to grow up quick,” Izzo said after the loss. “It’s like they took three steps forward before and six steps backwards tonight.”
The freshman trio combined for 16 points on 6-of-23 shooting from the field.
But getting open looks for Hill against the Buckeyes becomes much more difficult with Taylor on the sidelines, Izzo said.
“They can take (Hill) away a little bit easier when the wings aren’t shooting the ball (well),” Izzo said. “And right now, K.T. and Anderson aren’t shooting the ball (well).
“So, there are times when we don’t have the most offensive lineup out there.”
If the Spartans are going to be successful against the Buckeyes, they’ll have to slow down one of the premier backcourts in the Big Ten - the Buckeye trio of Brian Brown (14.9 points per game), Brent Darby (13.2) and Boban Savovic (11.5).
Junior forward Adam Ballinger said the backcourt sets the tone for the rest of the team.
“They’re just very solid, and they really don’t make many mistakes,” he said. “They have guys like Brown and Darby who really can step up for them and make big plays when they need them.”
The Buckeyes head to East Lansing coming off their second conference loss, a 94-92 overtime loss to Wisconsin.
Despite the recent loss, the Buckeyes are still one of the biggest surprises in the conference, if not the nation.
“We felt going into this season, we had a chance to be a little better than other people thought because they looked at us losing Ken Johnson,” Buckeye head coach Jim O’Brien said. “There was a general feeling that we weren’t going to be very good.”
Johnson, Ohio State’s all-time leading shot-blocker, averaged 12.5 points and 7.3 rebounds a game in his senior season.
And while O’Brien definitely knows Johnson won’t be on the floor Sunday, Izzo is unsure whether his playmaker will be able to go.
“That’s the frustrating thing about (a concussion),” Izzo said. “At least with an ankle sprain you have some kind of clue, and right now we don’t have a clue.”
And not knowing if Taylor can play makes preparing for the best team in the Big Ten tougher than usual, he said.
“If you try to prepare to play without Marcus, the next thing you got to do is move people around, like Anderson to the backcourt,” Izzo said. “You waste more time doing that then you do coaching your team. That poses a problem.”
But even the uncertainty over Taylor doesn’t stop Ballinger from thinking his team can recover from the Northwestern loss.
“Marcus is our best player, and not having him out on the floor definitely hurts us,” Ballinger said. “But, we’ve been at low points before this season and we’ve had to bounce back. We’ve been able to do that and this is a time when we definitely need to.”
