Appearing to be distraught and in disgust after the 82-75 loss to Indiana on Saturday, head coach Tom Izzo sat down at the podium, head on his hand, talking about his frustrations with team defense in the first half.

“I was so disappointed in our effort defensively in the first half,” Izzo said. “They (Indiana) did a good job, it was boys against men.”

The Hoosiers took a 14-point lead into the half, eventually bumping it up to 20 points before the Spartans rallied a late push to take the lead down to five. Junior guard Lourawls “Tum Tum” Nairn Jr. and freshman guard Cassius Winston failed to record an assist in the first half. Winston finished with three, Nairn with zero.

As the players said the loss is on them, Izzo had the same narrative with himself.

“A lot of this falls on me, we have to do a better job,” Izzo said. “This is the biggest challenge I have had in my life here as a coach because there’s not many people trying to play four freshmen and do what we are doing, and I’m not doing very well.”

With everyone blaming themselves, certain players are picking up their game at different times, rarely playing well together with cohesion.

It is a crude opposite of the bystander effect. The bystander effect, or diffusion of responsibility, occurs when everyone does nothing because they think someone else will do something. However, in this case everyone is pointing the finger at themselves rather than others, but the end result has remained the same.

Fifth-year senior Eron Harris played his best offensive scoring game in over two weeks, scoring 21 points for the Spartans. The last time Harris was in double figures was four games ago against Rutgers. Harris scored 24 in a 93-65 win.

“Within the team, we are going to fix that … everybody's got to do what they got to do, but it’s deeper than that,” Harris said. “I’m not saying we’re a perfect team, but we’re trying to be better.”

Although freshman forward Miles Bridges recorded a double-double, 13 points and 10 rebounds, he was clearly distraught after shooting 4-for-17 from the floor.

“We have to get things to change, it’s on us, it’s not on the coaches, they’re doing all they can,” Bridges said.

While everyone is point the blame at themselves, the team has dropped its last three games away from the Breslin Center.

“I have a lot of faith in these guys, I have a lot of faith in this program, got a lot of faith in me,” Winston said. “I wouldn’t trade this team for the world, so I have full believe that we’re going to fix it. There is no more room for error. To get where we want to get, our goals that we set out, we have to make this push.”

When asked about the team’s goals and whether or not it has been restructured after the series of disappointing road games, Winston said the team still has high hopes.

“We have the same goals, we took our lumps we took our bumps, even now we took our bump but we have what it takes, we have all the pieces that you need to be a great team in the country,” Winston said.

MSU’s next game will be at home against a stout Purdue (16-4, 5-2 Big Ten) team on Jan. 24. The game is set to tipoff at 7 p.m. and televised on ESPN2.