Hoops

[Spartanmack]

We only lose by 10 thanks to a garbage time bucket. Imagine if Sensibaugh actually played. This team has no heart.

OSU shoots 53% from beyond the arc. What was that about our 3 pt defense? It's garbage, a padded stat because we don't play great shooting teams in the B1G.

 

[Michchamp]

MSU shouldn't have had any problems beating OSU with him...they should roll OSU in this game.

This post is funny in hindsight.

I hope after you posted it you whistled and walked away and never checked the results.

 

[Spartanmack]

This post is funny in hindsight.

I hope after you posted it you whistled and walked away and never checked the results.

I don?t think he?s watched much MSU basketball this year - I don?t think anyone who has would agree with that post.

 

[byco42]

So, how did Spartan B-Ball "regress" to this "State" and is it salvageable? Making the NCAA and winning 19 games ain't tragic, right?

I mean, MSU isn't Michigan, the Program In Failure. Seems that Sbee was onto something when Howard was hired.

 

[Spartanmack]

So, how did Spartan B-Ball "regress" to this "State" and is it salvageable? Making the NCAA and winning 19 games ain't tragic, right?

I mean, MSU isn't Michigan, the Program In Failure. Seems that Sbee was onto something when Howard was hired.

Recruiting misses and missteps mostly but there have been more than enough blown games along the way. This year it's depth up front and not having anyone that can take over a game and get a bucket when you need it - no leadership.

Having a backcourt led by a junior and senior that have played together for 3 years should get much better results than what we've seen but while they've stepped up here and there, neither has consistently been the leader the team needs. Izzo opting not to bring in another big from the portal was a mistake and it makes no sense - why just light a scholarship on fire if you can use it to help the team?

Hopefully it's salvageable - we have a good class coming in and Aikin actually showed some signs of improvement throughout the season.

 

[Spartanmack]

For the most part, I was pleasantly surprised with the way they handled the full court pressure yesterday. It was a bit nerve-racking when Hoggard had to sit for extended minutes in the 1h. Never thought I'd say this but we need him on the floor.

Clearly, we're not the 8th best 3 point shooting team in the country but the silver lining is we're winning games while shooting like garbage. We've been streaky from long range all year, hopefully the pendulum swings in our favor when we need it.

 

[byco42]

Three acts to this game. MSU played well, MSU played poorly, MSU played well. The press that Marquette applied to me looked more like 3/4 and 1/2-court pressure. Marquette failed to apply adequate ball-denial pressure so that guards like Hoggart (sic) could find relief and pass the ball away from direct pressure. It also failed then to take MSU out of its offense, which is the point of a press in the first place.

I don't get how #10 is even on the team, but I've only seen him play this once.

 

[Spartanmack]

Three acts to this game. MSU played well, MSU played poorly, MSU played well. The press that Marquette applied to me looked more like 3/4 and 1/2-court pressure. Marquette failed to apply adequate ball-denial pressure so that guards like Hoggart (sic) could find relief and pass the ball away from direct pressure. It also failed then to take MSU out of its offense, which is the point of a press in the first place.

I don't get how #10 is even on the team, but I've only seen him play this once.

it was mostly 3/4 - I misspoke there. They were pretty effective with it while Hoggard was on the bench forcing us to use almost 10 seconds of the shot clock just to get to half court. Then they often had us dribbling around for 19 seconds and forcing up a shot. Walker had a few nice buckets late in the shot clock - he's the closest thing we have to a clutch player.

 

[johnny2x2x]

MSU went into the game 3rd in the country in 3 point shooting %. We shot 2-16 and about 12 of those misses were wide open. We're due for a hot shooting game. But we hit even a normal % yesterday, like 6-16, and that's a blwout. The defense was stifling.

 

[biggunsbob]

Do you guys think Marquette is coached smartly ? I?m curious. I told my wife the huge Msu fan when Marquette took the early 2nd half lead. They took a 3 point lead twice in the the second half. They kept jacking up shots so Helter skelter in my opinion. I thought it was a good thing because Msu had gone cold over that period on offense. Maybe that?s what maquette does on offense. First time watching them.

I told her it was a matter of time before all these dumb turnovers would catch up to Marquette. Maybe it was Msu was just the more physical team. I guess that?s one thing the big ten teaches. Other then Msu what a another disappointing big ten in the ncaa. Ksu looks beatable. Tennessee looks tough.

 

[johnny2x2x]

Do you guys think Marquette is coached smartly ? I?m curious. I told my wife the huge Msu fan when Marquette took the early 2nd half lead. They took a 3 point lead twice in the the second half. They kept jacking up shots so Helter skelter in my opinion. I thought it was a good thing because Msu had gone cold over that period on offense. Maybe that?s what maquette does on offense. First time watching them.

I told her it was a matter of time before all these dumb turnovers would catch up to Marquette. Maybe it was Msu was just the more physical team. I guess that?s one thing the big ten teaches. Other then Msu what a another disappointing big ten in the ncaa. Ksu looks beatable. Tennessee looks tough.

I think they are what they are, they win by playing helter skelter like. The Big East has 3 teams left in the Sweet 16, it was a tough conference this year and Marquette won it both in the regular season and tourney. Marquette was on an 11 game win streak that included 4 wins over those 3 Big East teams still alive now, UConn, Xavier twice, and Creighton. Xavier is an awful lot like MSU with being very physical and being a great 3 point shooting team, so I'm not sure they weren't ready for our physicality.

Where I think we overwhelmed them though was with the defense of our 3 guards. Walker is an elite on ball defender, and Akins is trending that way too, Hoggard is underrated as a defender and is really strong. Those 3 defended their guards about as well as you're going to see.

MSU was 2-16 from 3, we shoot even just below average and that game is a blowout. Kansas State is pretty similar to Marquette and USC for that matter. All 3 rely on great PGs and use length and athleticism to force turnovers. Playing in MSG is an advantage for MSU as we've played there already this season. K State is good, but I like the matchup, MSU can beat them. Tennessee looks really tough right now though.

 

[biggunsbob]

I think they are what they are, they win by playing helter skelter like. The Big East has 3 teams left in the Sweet 16, it was a tough conference this year and Marquette won it both in the regular season and tourney. Marquette was on an 11 game win streak that included 4 wins over those 3 Big East teams still alive now, UConn, Xavier twice, and Creighton. Xavier is an awful lot like MSU with being very physical and being a great 3 point shooting team, so I'm not sure they weren't ready for our physicality.

Where I think we overwhelmed them though was with the defense of our 3 guards. Walker is an elite on ball defender, and Akins is trending that way too, Hoggard is underrated as a defender and is really strong. Those 3 defended their guards about as well as you're going to see.

MSU was 2-16 from 3, we shoot even just below average and that game is a blowout. Kansas State is pretty similar to Marquette and USC for that matter. All 3 rely on great PGs and use length and athleticism to force turnovers. Playing in MSG is an advantage for MSU as we've played there already this season. K State is good, but I like the matchup, MSU can beat them. Tennessee looks really tough right now though.

Msu took that Marquette guard into the spin cycle and he turned it over 7 or 8 times. He wasn?t ready at all for Msu guards. I thought Ksu looked good. But Msu is a favorite so the bookies must think you are right about the matchup.

 

[johnny2x2x]

Msu took that Marquette guard into the spin cycle and he turned it over 7 or 8 times. He wasn?t ready at all for Msu guards. I thought Ksu looked good. But Msu is a favorite so the bookies must think you are right about the matchup.

Line open K State -1.5, but quickly flipped to MSU -2.5. We will not beat K State if we go 2-16 from 3 again. I do think it's an advantage having just played 2 teams in USC and MArquette that are very similar to K State. I like the matchup, but it's still near a coin flip game. MSU doesn't have enough talent to be confident about a win, but we are due for a game or 2 where we shoot lights out.

 

[Spartanmack]

MSU went into the game 3rd in the country in 3 point shooting %. We shot 2-16 and about 12 of those misses were wide open. We're due for a hot shooting game. But we hit even a normal % yesterday, like 6-16, and that's a blwout. The defense was stifling.

A big reason we're 3rd in the country is because we're 293rd in 3 point attempts per game. We're a very streaky shooting team and probably don't have a normal %. It's not that unusual for us to have a night like we did Friday or even Sunday. I wouldn't be surprised if we have one of the 10 biggest standard deviations.

The defense was solid but as Kenny Smith pointed out at half time, we were leaving the corners open. And while it was good - forced 6 turnovers from Kolek - it wasn't that stifling at least not when it comes to defending the arc. On the year, Marquette shoots 35% on 25.3 threes per game, they were 11-27 for 41% against us.

We built the big lead by out-rebounding them 20-12 and outscoring them in the pain 18-8 through most of the 1st half.

 

[gotime909]

There's a couple good shooters on the team. Problem is that instead of Hauser taking 8 3's yesterday, Malik decided to fire up 4. I trust Hauser and Walker to fire any time they have an open look. Akins is the wildcard. He's the only shooter I'd consider streaky. Hall and AJ should only shoot 3s as a last resort.

 

[johnny2x2x]

There's a couple good shooters on the team. Problem is that instead of Hauser taking 8 3's yesterday, Malik decided to fire up 4. I trust Hauser and Walker to fire any time they have an open look. Akins is the wildcard. He's the only shooter I'd consider streaky. Hall and AJ should only shoot 3s as a last resort.

Hall was shooting over 40% from 3 on the season before his recent slump.

Hoggard is up to 32.4% and his shot looks good, next year he'll have the green light from 3 if he can hit 35%+.

The weird thing about our straky shooting is that we tend to go cold when we get a ton of wide open looks. Those games at the end of the year we went off in seemed to be games where we were shooting them while better guarded.

 

[Spartanmack]

There's a couple good shooters on the team. Problem is that instead of Hauser taking 8 3's yesterday, Malik decided to fire up 4. I trust Hauser and Walker to fire any time they have an open look. Akins is the wildcard. He's the only shooter I'd consider streaky. Hall and AJ should only shoot 3s as a last resort.

Walker is our most consistent shooter for sure. Hauser has gotten better as of late but he's still a bit streaky. Looking at his stats, he should be taking 5+ per game as he's only shot poorly taking more than 5 shots a couple times. Hall and Hoggard should only take them when they're wide open or stuck holding the ball at the end of the shot clock...

Hauser stats

 

[Spartanmack]

Other then Msu what a another disappointing big ten in the ncaa. Ksu looks beatable. Tennessee looks tough.

Purdue losing was a huge disappointment but the rest of the B1G did about as expected. It's not what you want to see but it's not like they all underperformed expectations (other than Purdue of course).

I didn't watch every game but looking at the bracket, there weren't any other really embarrassing losses. Maryland won their 8/9 matchup and lost to a 1 seed, NW won their 7/10 game and had a respectable loss to the 2 seed (UCLA is 12-1 since February 1st), Illinois lost their 8/9 game to a team that beat the 1 seed, Iowa lost an 8/9 matchup (pretty much a toss-up), Indiana won then lost a 4/5 matchup - they could have shown up better, but in the end it's not like they lost a game they should have run away with.

The Spartans have exceeded expectations, but not by enough to offset the let down from Purdue - yet. Obviously, you'd like to see another team or two in the Sweet 16 but the conference wasn't very good this year.

It's a weird year. The Sweet 16 features 3 SEC and 3 Big East teams, 2 B1g 12 and just 1 each from the B1G and ACC.

 

[Spartanmack]

Hall was shooting over 40% from 3 on the season before his recent slump.

Hoggard is up to 32.4% and his shot looks good, next year he'll have the green light from 3 if he can hit 35%+.

The weird thing about our straky shooting is that we tend to go cold when we get a ton of wide open looks. Those games at the end of the year we went off in seemed to be games where we were shooting them while better guarded.

Hall's average bounced between 25% and 41% because he was averaging around 2 attempts per game. It's padded by a handful of 1 for 1 or 1 for 2 nights. He went 1 for 2 in the middle of the season and raised his average 2 almost whole pts, then went 0 for 2 the next game and his average dropped more than 3 whole points. He went 1 for 1 in back-to-back games in February and his average went from 34.8% to 40%. All that is to say his 3 point shooting stats are totally unreliable other than to say he doesn't take a lot of 3 point shots.

His recent "slump" comes as he has taking 4 attempts per game. He's 0 for 8 in the post season. He's not a 3 point threat and should go back to zero to 2 attempts per game. He's not someone who should never shoot them but not someone that should have the green light either.

 

[johnny2x2x]

Game Day.

I like the fact that KSu doesn't have a good inside player. Good post players were our kryptonite most of the season. Still, Johnson and Nowell are both unique talents that we haven't seen many players like all season. Johnson is a beast at 6-5, 230, he can score and shoot. Nowell is tiny at 5-7, 155, but is strong and lightning quick.

I think KSU has a great defense, but they don't rebound well. Have to dominate the glass to win. Have to shoot bettwer than 35% from 3 to win.

MSU is a 2 point favorite. Basically a tossup.

Prediction, MSU 71 K State 68