MSU head coach Tom Izzo said following the game his team didn’t play the way that has led them to so much success this season.

But Izzo, more than anything gave credit to Indiana.

“They did a great job,” he said. “For the first time, we did not respond very well to the scouting report. I think Indiana deserves a lot of credit for putting us in that position.”

At some points, MSU was able to fight back to within a few points. But without senior forward Draymond Green’s efforts — 29 points, eight rebounds — the Spartans would have been lost.

And while Izzo gave the crowd a lot of credit, senior guard Austin Thornton took the blame away from the raucous atmosphere.

“I wouldn’t say the crowd,” Thornton said. “Give that Hoosier team a lot of credit. They came out and punched us in the mouth.

Zeller and Oladipo
In the pregame scouting report, Izzo said the difference from December to now would be Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo.

In the first game, Zeller had just four points and four rebounds, Oladipo had 10 points.

Tuesday night was vastly different. The freshman center scored 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting. And Oladipo added 13 points, 11 in the first half.

“Oladipo played was tough,” Green said. “We knew what he was going to do, but we didn’t excute the scouting report on him.

“We just didn’t defend well and that’s been a mark of the team this year and that’s why we’ve had success.”

Green’s try
With no one else on the team — aside from Thornton at times — stepping up, Green tried to single-handidly keep the Spartans in the game.

And while the numbers point to one of his better games of his career, they don’t mean a thing to Green.

“Nothing,” he said. “We didn’t win. I would much rather take zero point and a win than 29 points and a loss. We lost the game, that’s all that matters.”

But even near the end of the game, perhaps because of the point-deficit, Green seemed frustrated, along with fatigued.

“I got a little tired down the stretch,” Green said. “I played 36 minutes in an uptempo game, but nothing that kept me doing from what I wanted to do.”