Spartans have 22 hours rest before taking on Purdue
March Madness officially began for Michigan State on Thursday in Minnesota. After a very disappointing regular season, Tom Izzo and company were on to the Big Ten Tournament, where they were playing the hometown school, the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
Early on, we saw a Spartan team that we saw regularly this season as MSU found themselves down 0-7 in the opening minutes. Most notable from that segment was Carson Cooper missing three free throws before sinking his fourth attempt to get MSU on the board.
MSU kicked it into gear then when Xavier Booker came on the floor and had back-to-back dunks of the thunderous variety. The remainder of the first half was a very back-and-forth affair with eight lead changes. At halftime, Minnesota was up by two, 34-32.
There were some troubling stats from the first half. The Spartans had allowed Minnesota to attempt 13 three-point shots. AJ Hoggard committed three turnovers, half of the team’s total. Tyson Walker shot 2-9 for a mere five points. Malik Hall picked up a pair of early fouls and sat the majority of the half. On the positive side, MSU outrebounded Minnesota 16-12. Jaden Akins and Xavier Booker led the scoring with 7 and 6, respectively. For the Gophers, however, Dawson Garcia and Parker Fox had 10 and 9, respectively.
In the second half, the things that had mostly troubled MSU in the first half, fouls and turnovers, began to reverse course. Minnesota was in the penalty by the midway point of the 2nd half, and MSU was in the double-bonus with several minutes remaining. On the flip side, MSU did not put Minnesota in the bonus until under four minutes were left. Also, Spartan defenders were in a zone ripping steals away from the Gophers. Jaden Akins, Tre Holloman, Tyson Walker, and Xavier Booker all had two steals in this game, as MSU finished with ten pickpockets.
On the scoreboard, Minnesota still controlled things for about the first eight minutes after the break. But when MSU took the lead on a Malik Hall &1 right at the under-12 timeout, 50-49, they never looked back. From there, MSU just grew and grew their lead, getting up by as much as thirteen points. A triple by the Gophers’ Elijah Hawkins with ten seconds remaining gave us the final margin, a ten-point win for MSU by the final of 77-67.
In honor of the win, we are only talking positives now; there will be no dislikes today.
3 Things I Liked:
- Minutes. MSU played almost the entire rotation extensively. The only exceptions to that were Mady Sissoko, predictably, and Coen Carr, understandably. Mady played one minute and Carr played six. Only two Spartans went over 30 minutes of playing time – Jaden Akins with 35 and Tyson Walker with 32. AJ Hoggard had 29. A number of players had 20 or 21 minutes – Cooper, Hall, Kohler, and Holloman. And Xavier Booker had a strong outing in his fifteen minutes. I think this will help keep a number of players relatively fresh for tomorrow’s game. I think Hall will be the biggest winner here as we need him to have two good halves tomorrow, not just the one he had today.
- Winning all the stats. MSU shot better than Minnesota today in all categories: FGs, 3s, and FTs. I’m not saying they shot particularly well at the line, only 63%. And if I would have done a Dislikes list, the low number of three-point attempts, eight, would be at the top of it. But after the ugly start, MSU did a good job of creating great opportunities and was getting good looks for most of the game. Beyond shooting percentage, MSU also won the rebounding, assists, steals, turnovers, and fouls competitions. The only stat that skewed Minnesota’s way was blocks, where they edged MSU, 3-2. Overall, MSU displayed superiority in this one.
- AJ Hoggard. Today, our PG led this team to victory in more ways than one. He finished with the team lead in scoring with 17 points. Breaking that down, AJ was a perfect 6-6 from the field including making his solo triple-try, and was flawless at the FT line, making all four of his attempts there. His six assists were also tops amongst the Spartans. But beyond those stats, AJ played with a confidence and determination that has been absent for large amounts of this year. Today, though, when he had the ball, he knew what he was doing with it. Aside from his first half trio of turnovers, his passing was on point. His transition game, both leading the drive and finishing it, was smooth. And when he decided to take it himself in the half-court game, he was losing defenders and finishing with easy layups. Let’s get this AJ again tomorrow.
Moving on to tomorrow’s game, I think the wish list has to be a bounce-back game from Walker and a complete game from Hall. I know Walker ended up with 15 points, second on the team, but eight of those came in the final five minutes when MSU was pulling away. Let’s get that earlier against Purdue. As for Hall, we need him to stay in the game and avoid foul trouble. He still is our best low-post scorer, despite all the announcers’ talk about Kohler’s footwork. And yes, a repeat performance from Hoggard.
Let’s get on a run!
VICTORY FOR MSU!!!
Can anyone explain the physics of what happened on that Minnesota alley-oop with about 9:30 to go in the game? The ball somehow just got stuck in the rim. I did not understand it.
One last thing. We want to do a tourney pool again. From the survey I ran a few weeks back, seems like there is enough interest here to make it fun. Here’s the thing. SB Nation/VOX Media prevents us from doing it for cash. So I am going to leave it up to you what you guys want to do. If anyone of you, and may I suggest someone who is a bit more established in the comments section, would like to take it upon themselves to say something and make it a more “valuable” competition, well, we can’t stop you from doing that. I will have a bracket group created on ESPN.com and it will be out Sunday evening after the bracket reveal.