Michigan State basketball: 3rd loss in 4 games continues to expose Spartans' shortcomings

Michigan State basketball: 3rd loss in 4 games continues to expose Spartans’ shortcomings

Posted by author February 12, 2025 Basketball

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EAST LANSING – Tom Izzo spent the past two weeks attempting to sidestep talking about a record.

His priority concern was knowing the Big Ten race was about to tighten up. Not when or where he might pass Bob Knight for the most conference wins in league history.

“I think the road is gonna get tougher,” Izzo said Jan. 28 after beating Minnesota, a ninth win to open Big Ten play to extend the Spartans’ win streak to 13.

Fifteen days and three losses later, Izzo’s unease about Michigan State basketball then looks more and more prophetic.

With Mark Dantonio, Jonathan Smith and Steve Mariucci among the sellout Breslin Center crowd prepared to celebrate a milestone Tuesday night. Instead, No. 11 MSU battled foul trouble in the post, failed to hit shots from 3-point range and struggled to defend the interior as previously listless Indiana stunned the Spartans and spoiled the night.

Leaving Izzo to retreat to his office to process a 71-67 defeat that left many wondering how things unraveled so quickly. And it showed the worries he expressed about his young team during its promising two-month stretch are turning into flaws opponents are exposing and exploiting as it March nears.

“We had an opportunity for a special night,” Izzo said Tuesday. “I don’t think the players played very well, and I don’t think the coaches coached very well. So that’s a bad combination against a team that was desperate. …

“I tried to explain when we were 9-0 what was going on. And I haven’t changed one bit. I told you four or five losses would win the league, and I haven’t changed on that any at all. We put ourselves in a hole now.”

‘Just didn’t capitalize’

A third loss (by a combined 12 points) in its last four games dropped MSU (19-5, 10-3 Big Ten) into third place in the conference standings, a game behind first-place Michigan after the Wolverines knocked off second-place Purdue earlier Tuesday. It also means Izzo is stuck at 353 conference victories after tying Knight on Saturday with a home win over Oregon.

The Spartans’ next chance to give Izzo a tiebreaking win comes Saturday night at Illinois (8 p.m./Fox). MSU defeated the Illini, 80-78, on Jan. 19 at Breslin.

“We just didn’t capitalize, and we didn’t give him that record,” freshman Jase Richardson said. “So we gotta get back to work and get ready for Saturday.”

Much like USC and UCLA did in handing MSU its first two Big Ten losses, Indiana (15-10, 6-8) disrupted the Spartans’ previously breakneck transition attack after Izzo’s bunch raced out to a 20-8 lead with 10 fastbreak points in the first 12:09. The Hoosiers then settled into a 2-2-1 full-court press that slowed MSU’s guards, and the Spartans went without a fastbreak point for the rest of the first half and for the first 9:35 of the second.

In doing so, Indiana would drop into a 2-3 zone in the halfcourt. The Hoosiers dared MSU to shoot from outside, something Izzo’s team has poorly all season. The Spartans, who entered the game ranked 340th out of 355 Division I teams at just 29.5% from behind the arc, went 4-for-23 from 3-point range against the defense deployed by IU coach Mike Woodson, who announced last week this would be his final season.

The Hoosiers, who had lost five straight entering Tuesday, outscored MSU 24-9 over the final 10:28 of the opening half to take a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. And after averaging 18.5 points a game on the break before heading to Los Angeles, the Spartans have dipped to 17.4 through 24 games.

“I think offensively, we were stagnant. We weren’t moving,” said Richardson, who had 13 points on just 5-for-12 shooting and 1-for-6 from deep. “I think If we would have hit shots early, it probably would have got them out of the zone. But defensively, we weren’t doing our jobs, so we couldn’t get out oin transition. It just wasn’t an overall good game.”

Izzo also had to navigate foul trouble with post players Szymon Zapala, Jaxon Kohler and Carson Cooper for much of the first half and throughout the game. Indiana’s big men Oumar Ballo and Malik Reneau started to take advantage of the Spartans’ soft interior presence, combining for 33 points and 22 rebounds.

“We were in so much foul trouble that our bigs really couldn’t guard well,” Izzo said. “But we also missed three (or) four layups, and we missed some incredible, I thought, open 3s. But that’s the way the game goes.”

No rhythm and blues

Still, much like they did against both the Trojans and Bruins, then again in coming back from a 14-point halftime deficit to beat Oregon on Saturday at Breslin, the Spartans recovered and made it a game after trailing by nine with 3:14 to play. They managed nine more fastbreak points in the final 10:25, all of which came at the free-throw line, and cut it to 65-64 with 9.7 seconds left but couldn’t overcome the deficit.

Even though MSU finished with 19 fastbreak points, the rhythm and fluid ball movement that defined its win streak continues to vanish.

“I think teams know that’s a strength of ours,” said senior Frankie Fidler, who had 10 of his 12 points in the final 10-plus minutes. “Kind of (facing) a token 2-2-1 zone slows us down, but we shouldn’t let it slow us down. We should always be aggressive, always be on the run.”

Things Izzo’s teams usually have done. Things this team did for the first three months before this bout of February flatness. With history left in limbo.

Tuesday felt much like MSU’s 2019 football game against Jayden Daniels and Arizona State, when Dantonio was on the verge of breaking Duffy Daugherty’s school all-time wins record. Izzo and other alums stood on the sideline and watched the Sun Devils stun the Spartans and steal the spotlight.

Dantonio would break Daugherty’s record a week later at Northwestern, but it would eventually be his final season.

“It’s just life — another life message, man,” Dantonio said after that 10-7 loss. “You gotta get up, you gotta get off the ground.”

With seven games left in the regular season, that is a lesson Izzo needs his team to embrace with a daunting stretch ahead that includes Saturday’s snakepit trip to lllinois, followed by a visit next Tuesday from the Boilermakers and a Feb. 21 road game at U-M.

“We have a different level of fight in us. And I feel like we need to bring it out earlier,” Richardson said. “If we bring that fight out earlier in the first half or early in the second half, we could have won this game. But we didn’t.

“We just gotta be better.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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