A look at the team trying to keep MSU from the Elite 8
We are just over 48 hours away from Michigan State’s next game in the NCAA Tournament, a Sweet 16 matchup against the Rebels of Ole Miss. The game is Friday night at 7:09 PM ET and will be broadcast on CBS. The winner, of course, advances to the Elite 8 on Sunday.
Before I get into my analysis of this opponent, I want to quickly address their coach. Ole Miss is led by Chris Beard. In case you forgot, Beard was the coach of Texas Tech when they defeated us in the 2019 Final Four. His defense gave us fits that day. Hopefully Tom Izzo has that figured out this time and gets a measure of revenge. Now onto his current team.
Ole Miss had themselves a respectable season. They finished their regular season with a 21-10 overall record and a 10-8 record in the SEC, good for 6th place in their conference. In the SEC Tournament, they first defeated Arkansas 83-80 in the second round and then fell to Auburn in the quarterfinals, 62-57. So far in the Big Dance, they have dispatched 11-seed North Carolina 71-64 and then the injury-riddled 3-seed Iowa State 91-78.
The popular explanation for Ole Miss’s performance in the tourney so far has been their sizzling three-point shooting. Indeed, after shooting the three-ball around 35% on the season, the Rebels have gone way above that in two tournament games. First, against North Carolina, they went 40% on 8-20 from downtown, and then in the Iowa State game, they were a ridiculous 11-19 for 58%. Looking back a little further at the SEC Tournament, the Rebels went 33% against Arkansas and an appalling 17.4% on Alabama. So yes, the Rebels have suddenly caught fire shooting threes in the tournament thus far.
The good news with this is that Michigan State has the country’s #1 defense against three-point shooting. Not only is their 27.8% allowed tops in the nation, but it is also the only mark below 30% among Big Ten teams. There are two factors that contribute to this impressive statistic. The first is the motor with which MSU plays defense. Simply put, MSU refuses to get outworked and outhustled by any opponent. Watching MSU, they are relentless in their pursuit of the ball, ensuring that no one ever gets an uncontested shot. Even if you get open, you are going to hear the footsteps sprinting your way. The depth of MSU and the luxury of always having fresh legs on the court certainly contributes to this ability.
The other attribute behind MSU’s three-point defense is our size. MSU’s starting perimeter players, Fears, Richardson, and Akins stand 6’2”, 6’3”, and 6’4”, respectively. While these are not giants by any means, if you look at the heights of Ole Miss’s three smallest starters you will see a distinction. The Rebels starting lineup features 5’11” Jaylen Murray, 6’1” Sean Pedulla, and 6’4” Matthew Murrell. In fact, the Rebels starting five actually features a fourth player listed as a guard, 6’6” Dre Davis, and one forward, 6’9” Malik Dia. And looking at their rotation, Ole Miss has been only playing 8 players through two tournament games, and none of the three bench players is taller than 6’8”. All five of the starters shoot the deep ball above 31%, as do two of their rotational pieces. So even if Ole Miss tries to spread us out with four guys on the perimeter, MSU has the players to defend that. Tre Holloman, Frankie Fidler, and Coen Carr all have the ability to stay with an opponent far from the hoop; Jaxon Kohler and Carson Cooper really are not liabilities out there either. If MSU has to play small, they can do that successfully.
Will this gameplan be so simple as just needing to stop the Rebels’ three-point shooters? Let’s take a look at some other statistics to see where they succeed and struggle. Predictably with their height, or lack thereof, the Rebels are not a strong rebounding team. They were next to last in the SEC in total rebounds, 33.1, and offensive rebounds, 9.1, this season. Complicating this matter further for them is the fact that this is MSU’s strong suit. MSU only allows opponents to corral 30.6 rebounds and 9.0 offensive boards per game. Both of those marks are tops in the Big Ten (okay fine, Purdue only allows 30.5) and would also be tops if we were in the SEC. One thing that the Spartans could have to be wary about is if Ole Miss becomes overly reliant on the deep ball, which has not been the case in the tournament so far (37 and 35% of their FGAs have been 3s). In that case, we would just need to stay disciplined in looking out for long rebounds and making sure we are boxing out even their perimeter guys.
One part of the game where Ole Miss has excelled this year is in turnovers, creating them and giving them up. Their 8.8 steals per game is fourth in the SEC, and top thirty nationally, and better than any of the other six SEC teams still dancing. On the other end, they only commit 9.0 turnovers per game, leading their conference and third in the nation. Michigan State has certainly had games where turnovers have been a massive problem, though they seem to have cleaned that up in March. On the season, MSU’s opponents only steal the ball from the Spartans 5.9 times per game and only force MSU into 11.5 turnovers per game. This is going to have to be the area where the Rebels give MSU problems seeing how we can assume MSU will win the rebounding battle and will be able to push the pace of the game on offense. But if they can force some turnovers, especially on MSU’s breaks, they will have an opportunity to stay in it and have a shooter’s chance. I am now taking bets as to whether MSU will have a turnover on their first possession.
Speaking of bets, the line on this game is MSU by 3.5 points, per FanDuel. A couple of the TOC writers are predicting a close game.
Mike: I’m thinking it’s going to be like the 2019 national semi-final, but with a 2025 Maryland outcome (probably minus the half court game winner though). Ole Miss has the ball last but MSU gets a stop to send them to the regional final. 56-55 MSU.
Steve: 62-56 MSU.
O: I have definitely overshot my prediction in the last game so I will bring this one down a bit. But I still see a double-digit win, so let’s say 74-64. Carr and Akins were the high scorers in the last two games. I am going to say Kohler gets his offense going in this one against a shorter opponent and leads the way with 18.
Who is going to be in Atlanta? I received an email that the MSU Alumni Association is going to be putting on a pep rally near the arena a few hours before the game. Here is the info on that.
GO GREEN! GO WHITE!