Michigan State had a fight Wednesday night at Breslin as PSU just refused to go away. The Spartans never lost the lead in this game and it never really felt in danger but you could feel the fight needed to come out on top. Perhaps the Spartans were looking ahead a bit to Sunday and the true test of where Spartan basketball is in the game of the week against Illinois.
MSU started off true to form with pushing the tempo but PSU fought back and made a strong push in the middle of the first half. MSU looked a bit sloppy on defense as they were getting beat off the dribble and challenged in tempo. MSU managed to get into the bonus and hit free throws to fight off the push. The Spartans were not dominating the defensive rebounds like they usually do but the team still managed to head into the half up by ten thanks to back to back dunks by Coen Carr and a nice paint play by Kohler.
The first five minutes of the second half saw PSU cut the Spartan lead to four by out rebounding, knocking down threes and pushing tempo even while Ace Baldwin Jr was clearly in some pain. The Spartans began to capitalize on sloppy play and take the lead back up to 9 with twelve minutes to go. PSU managed to close the gap again late thanks to some three point shooting but the Spartans took advantage of their solid free throw shooting and put the game away.
So, let’s take a page out of fellow TOC writer, O, and take a look at three likes and three dislikes from the victory over PSU.
3 Things I Liked:
- Points off turnovers. MSU did a fabulous job of turning Penn State’s 14 turnovers into 27 points. One of my favorites was Holloman’s pick of Baldwin and slows it down and drops it off to Kohler for the easy basket. It may have been a different game had Penn State capitalized the same way. The turnover at the five minute mark that pushed the lead back out to ten at 76-66.
- Akins. Akins has been playing all season as the guy he needs to be. We spoke about it preseason on this very site about the necessity of Akins improving his game and the correlation to the teams success this season. Akins is having a fantastic senior year thus far. He’s playing confident, displaying leadership, and owning the “be the guy” position. The confidence and swagger with that three at the 7:52 mark is exactly what this teams needs from Akins the rest of the year.
- The ball spread. Eight MSU players ended this game with at least 7 points and ten had points. It’s really nice how deep this team is and how many people can get hot, or take the lead. This team has been doing a great job of spreading the ball around and finding the right hot hand at the moment. Shout out to Fidler who had a really nice second half, particularly in the paint.
3 Things I disliked:
- Fouls. There were a lot of sloppy second half fouls in this game. PSU was in the bonus with 7 minutes left in the game. Some of this was clearly due to some questionable calls, like the Richardson block with a minute to go. However, the free baskets are definitely something the Spartans don’t need to be doing.
- Perimeter defense. PSU was throwing up a lot of threes and a lot of the reason was the lack of challenge. It felt like every time you looked down, you’d look back up to see a three being tossed up. Spartans need to close that gap and not give so many clean looks. Luckily, some of those clean looks didn’t fall, but then you have them knocking it down with 20 seconds left to cut the lead to four. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need the stress of worrying about wide open threes.
- The building pressure. I’ll be honest, this one is just about me as a fan and perhaps some of you can relate. I’m nervous. This team is actually looking solid. I like how they play together, I like the depth, I like the respect they seem to have for each other and Izzo. I like that they’ve played decent against some strong opponents early in the season and that they’ve taken care of business in the early BIG schedule. All of that is great! It also terrifies me. It makes my expectations start to rise and it gets my hopes up. Could this be more than I thought? I hope so, and I don’t like be shockingly surprised because sometimes it hurts more when it comes down. There are some big games coming up in the conference and I’m excited to see how the Spartans match up. Keep stressing me out MSU. I may complain, but I can handle it, I swear!
Go Green!