Sophomore guard Johnny Davis (1) brings the ball down the court in MSU's match against the Badgers in the quarter-finals of the B1G Tournament at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. Shot on March 11, 2022.
With the game in the balance and trailing Michigan State 67-63 with 15 seconds left, Wisconsin turned to Big Ten Player of the Year Johnny Davis for a necessary bucket to keep the Badgers’ Big Ten title dreams alive.
Davis found himself with the ball in his hands on the right block as the clock switched to single-digits with freshman guard Max Christie breathing down his neck. Davis lowered his shoulder into Christie’s chest before elevating for his shot.
Christie stood his ground with his hands up, not surrendering an inch to Davis. Davis tried to muscle the shot in through the contact but was off-target on the layup. MSU scrambled for the ball before sophomore A.J. Hoggard came up with the rebound, securing Michigan State’s unlikely victory over the second-seeded Badgers.
The play was emblematic of the defensive effort on Davis all night, which was spearheaded by Christie. Davis is the straw that stirs the drink for the Wisconsin offense, using his strength and speed to dissect defenses with drives to the rim, but tonight, his mojo was nowhere to be found.
Coming into tonight, Davis averaged 20.0 points per game and scored 25 points in both regular-season games against MSU, but that was not the case tonight. Davis finished with 11 points on 3-19 shooting and struggled all night while MSU suffocated him and shrunk the court every time the ball touched his hands. It was a disappointing performance in his first game back after suffering an ankle injury in the regular-season finale against Nebraska.
“I just missed shots,” Davis said. “It happens in the game of basketball.”
The game plan for MSU defensively was simple: do whatever is necessary to take Davis out of the game and make the rest of Wisconsin beat them. Junior point guard Tyson Walker said MSU wanted to have six eyes on Davis every time he touched the ball and play in the gaps of the passing lanes to limit Davis’ playmaking options after he committed to taking the ball to the rim.
It's the approach that MSU Head Coach Tom Izzo and MSU normally employ to slow down an opposing team’s star. Deploy two help defenders at all times to limit opportunities around the rim, play in passing lanes to cut off the oxygen on potential kick-outs and make sure that every shot is contested.
The plan has its flaws but has worked consistently for MSU in the past and tonight was no different. Davis, normally unfazed with whatever defenses throw at him, could not solve the quandary that MSU’s defense presented to him despite coming into the game knowing MSU was going to throw the kitchen sink at him to try and curb his blazing scoring.
“Every time he caught the ball we just wanted to be in our gaps, have six eyes on him, make it tough for him because he's a heck of a player,” Walker said. “He can make tough shots. Every shot he took we wanted to be contested and we didn't want nothing easy for him.”
He tried to barrel through defenders on drives, pull up for tough contested midrange jumpers and took threes on the move flying off screens, but nothing worked. When he tried to dump the ball to the litany of Badgers shooters, MSU pounced on the passing lanes, turning Davis over three times.
“I don't think I did a good job of dispersing the ball and finding my teammates but a lot of those shots just were on me,” Davis said. “I rushed through them or just didn't get the look that I wanted to.”
A number of players for MSU took a crack at guarding Davis during his 34-minute stint, but no one was on him more than Christie. The freshman guard was the hero offensively for MSU in its second-round win over Maryland and responded with one of his best nights defensively 24 hours later.
Christie served as Davis’ shadow for almost all of his 34 minutes, making sure that Davis was not getting the ball in his preferred spots and used his length and strength to increase the difficulty of the shot tenfold for the Badger superstar. He spearheaded the team-wide effort to stop Davis and the Wisconsin offense in its tracks.
“Wisconsin's a hell of a team,” Izzo said. “Johnny Davis is really good. We put a lot into him. We had bigs helping, we had guards helping… We did do a pretty good job on Johnny. And I'm sure the injury had something to do with it.”
The resources spent on trying to slow down Davis proved to be the key formula for Michigan State defensively. Wisconsin managed to only score 63 points, its fifth-lowest total of the season, on 36.7% shooting (22-60) and 29% from three (7-24).
Almost every look the Badgers had come with a Spartan hand contesting the shot and MSU worked to close each possession with a rebound. MSU did allow 10 total offensive rebounds for second-chance opportunities, but only surrendered two offensive rebounds in the second half and four-second chance points total.
Just a week after it looked like MSU reached its lowest point defensively in back-to-back losses to Ohio State and Michigan, the Spartans' defensive identity looks stronger than ever. For all 40 minutes, MSU was engaged while playing defense and took pride in making life miserable for their opponents. It was the type of win that Michigan State desperately needed in the eyes of its leader, who has seen a team make a run before in tournament time.
“I thought we won it the way we needed to win it and I still think we can get better offensively,” Izzo said.
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