Hawkeyes use late first half run to take control of the game, never allow Spartans to get back in it.
After picking up a pair of road wins last week, Michigan State returned to the friendly confines of the Breslin Center on Tuesday night to battle Iowa. Both teams started off slowly on offense, with the first points coming on the sixth possession of the game. After that opening dry spell, the Spartans got hot from deep, making their first four triple-tries. The two teams traded the lead for a large portion of the first half, with neither team having more than a four-point advantage. But with about six minutes remaining before halftime, the home teams Spartans went cold. From the game being tied 27-27, the Hawkeyes finished the half on an 18-6 run to go into the break leading 45-33.
Both teams got into some foul trouble in the first half, primarily at their center position. Iowa had one starter, Owen Freeman, miss the majority of the half after picking up an early second foul. Not to be outdone, the player who subbed for Freeman, Ladji Dembele, picked up three fouls in the first half. For MSU, Carson Cooper and Mady Sissoko each had two; Sissoko’s both came early, and he spent all but a few minutes on the bench in the first.
The Spartans finished the first half shooting 7-14 from deep, but they were only 4-15 on their two-pointers. The culprit behind many of those misses were missed layups. AJ Hoggard alone missed three down low. Cooper and Sissoko both missed their only first half FGAs. And MSU missed half of their FTAs (4-8) before halftime, while Iowa sunk 9-10.
The second half did not start well for MSU, as Iowa quickly ballooned the lead to 16. But then Hoggard scored his first basket of the game, and then soon after added a second, both coming in the lane. For Iowa, their starting center, Freeman, picked up two more fouls and was back on the bench with four.
After the first TV timeout of the second half, it began to feel like Iowa was getting tight offensively. AJ Hoggard began to take over on the offensive end adding some more layups and tossing an alley-oop to Malik Hall. If not for a foul on Tre Holloman for getting a three-point shooter on the elbow, who would then sink all three FTs, the game could have been closer than the ten-point deficit that MSU faced at the under-12 timeout.
Right out of the commercial, Walker nailed a corner three. A couple possession later, Jaden Akins splashed in a trey. But both times, MSU was unable to consolidate the make with a good defensive stand and both times, Iowa pushed their lead back to ten. A late layup before the under-8 by Malik Hall made the score 62-54.
In the next-to-last segment of the game, MSU quickly got the game down to six, but then Iowa pushed it back to ten with six minutes to play. An AJ Hoggard triple made it a seven-point game, but then Iowa responded with two more field goals around some sloppy play by MSU to go up 11. With 4:07 to go, Izzo called a timeout. Walker scored on a driving layup out of the timeout, and at the under-4, MSU was down 70-61.
Back from commercial, Tre Holloman got open on a back cut and scored on a wide-open layup. After forcing a shot-clock violation, MSU scored quickly on a Malik Hall drive to get the deficit down to 5 with 2:31 left. That would be the closest the Spartans would get. After calling a timeout, Iowa got a basket when they snuck around a backscreen. After MSU turned it over on a second chance opportunity, Iowa scored another basket down low to get to a nine-point lead. After another MSU miss, the Spartans were forced to foul. Iowa split the pair. Hoggard then hit a pair of FTs, but MSU had to foul to stop the clock, and the Hawkeyes’ shooter split the pair. Walker tried driving to the basket, but he missed MSU’s ninth layup of the game. Iowa went back to the line but missed the front end. For some reason, MSU did not think about going for three, and Hall converted a short jumper. MSU trailed by 7 with 24.5 seconds left. After trying to get a steal, MSU fouled again, and Iowa made both FTs. A late Hoggard layup was the final score of the game, and Iowa was allowed to dribble it out for the 78-71 win on the road.
This game sucked. Let’s get this over with.
3 Things I Liked:
- Carson Cooper going 3-4 on his FTs. His stroke has looked better the last few games. If he can’t make layups, and if opponents will continue to foul him mistakenly, it is nice to know he has improved this part of his game.
- Three-point shooting. We’ve all been screaming for MSU to shoot more deep shots. Tonight they launched 20, and they made 10 of them. By contrast, Iowa only hit on 4-13.
- Entertaining the crowd. Coming back from one of the TV timeouts, they showed a few moments of some performance dog named Scooby, and that was fun for a few seconds.
3 Things I Disliked:
- Defense. MSU has forged an identity on defense this year of stealing the ball and forcing turnovers. Tonight, the Spartans managed just one steal, attributed to Walker, and forced only six Iowa turnovers. Considering that a few of those were dead ball turnovers, MSU did not have many opportunities for fast break points. Aside from that, MSU was getting beaten over and over by a Hawkeye sneaking around a screen to get open in the low post for an easy basket. The help defense and the communication were completely absent in the interior. I suspect that some of this was due to Mady Sissoko only playing a total of thirty seconds in this game, as I will still argue that his interior defense is still the best on the team. Lastly, MSU gave up some uncharacteristically undisciplined fouls.
- Free throw shooting. Yep, I got to throw this one out there, especially since it felt like this team had put this particular issue behind them. But it reared its head in this game to the tune of 7-14 from the stripe. That’s right, MSU shot the same percentage from beyond the arc as they did from the stripe. That is highly embarrassing.
- Only two minutes for Coen Carr. In his limited action, he took a couple shots. The first was an unlucky miss on a layup. And the second was a short jumper where he also drew a foul but missed the FT. His offense has been improving. I’d like to see more of him, maybe even taking some of Akins minutes. Akins was 2-7 for 6 points in 29 minutes. Nothing efficient about that. Why not give him some more rest and get someone out there who can spark some energy?
Okay, let’s put this game behind us and get ready for Ohio State on Sunday. It becomes harder now, but a top four spot for the BTT is still a possibility.