Michigan State basketball dropped its final regular season game against Indiana, 64-65. Let’s get into the good, great, bad, and ugly.
As soon as Michigan State basketball likely locked up another NCAA Tournament appearance, they decided to make it interesting by losing to Indiana, 65-64.
In MSU’s final regular season game, the Spartans came out extremely flat, once again, only scoring seven points in the first 10 minutes. They would start to put thing together to close out the first half, and to start the second, but eventually fell back into their stagnant ways and let Indiana come away with the win. Michigan State guards finished the game with 42 of the Spartans’ 64 points, and just five from the center position, once again, and as a result, the Spartans will enter the Big Ten Tournament with an 8-seed.
Let’s get into the good, great, bad, and ugly from the final regular season game for Michigan State.
Good: Defensive Pressure
This Michigan State team is above average defensively. The Spartans clearly have individuals go off against them every few weeks (see Kel’el Ware, Zach Edey, Boo Buie, etc.), but MSU is normally able to hold their own against the rest of the team. On Sunday afternoon, Michigan State did a great job defensively, forcing 16 turnovers and coming away with 12 steals. The Spartans were active in the passing lanes, had quick hands, and did a great job forcing the Hoosiers into mistakes. It was a big reason that Michigan State was able to get back into the game and take a seven-point lead at one point. They used these steals to get out in transition and remedy their struggling half court offense.
MSU will need this same energy against Minnesota on Thursday as they take on a great point guard in Elijah Hawkins.
Great: Tyson Walker
Tyson Walker quietly had a very good first half, while the rest of the Spartans struggled. Walker was less quiet in the second half, however. The graduate senior finished with a game-high 21 shot attempts, connecting on 11 of them. He would finish with 30 of Michigan State’s 64 points. Tyson was getting everything to go, no matter where he was on the court, especially in the second half against Indiana. He was 4-for-8 from 3-point range, and was a major reason Michigan State was able to claw its way back into this game. Even though he couldn’t get it done in the ISO situation to finish the game, more on that in a second, Tyson left it all out on the court in his final regular-season game for Michigan State basketball.
Bad: Tyson Walker Clutch ISO situations
I can already feel the eyes rolling and angry comments being thrown at me for this. Especially after Tyson just made his way into the great section for this article. But hear me out.
Michigan State has been in a good amount of close games this season, more often than not coming out on the losing end. In each of these situations, Tom Izzo and the Spartans have decided to get Tyson Walker the final shot. And before I continue, I want to say I agree with this. Tyson is the best player on this team and should get the final shot. But, we have seen the same play — Tyson go ISO and try to get a bucket — not work. It was the same situation for James Madison, Arizona, Maryland, and now Indiana. That’s not even counting the amount of times the same isolation play has been run and failed to end the first half.
Again, I want Walker to take the final shot. He is the most trusted one on this roster. But everyone and their brother knows what play MSU is going to run. Opposing teams are easily able to switch their players to allow their best defender to take on Walker. MSU needs some creativity to get Tyson a more clear opportunity, rather than dribble and force a layup.
Ugly: First-half pace
Based on how MSU’s roster is composed, its half-court offense is never going to be elite. They lack an interior presence that allows them to properly move the ball both inside and out. We have seen this time and time again this season from the Spartans. If they are unable to use the momentum from the transition game, they stall out. It then usually devolves into Walker or AJ Hoggard just dribbling out the shot clock.
During Sunday’s game against Indiana, Michigan State basketball had terrible pace. This plagued them in both the first half, and then towards the end of the game as well. Both timeframes resulted in very limited offensive success for MSU. Not surprisingly, when Michigan State mounted a comeback, it was out and running, pushing the pace, and scoring in transition. It’s obvious not only does this offense thrive in this type of play, they die when not utilizing it.
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