Michigan State Basketball: Report card for win over Houston Baptist

Michigan State Basketball: Report card for lopsided win over Houston Baptist

EAST LANSING, MI - DECEMBER 18: Miles Bridges #22 and Joshua Langford #1 of the Michigan State Spartans react to a second half play while playing the Houston Baptist Huskies at the Jack T. Breslin Student Events Center on December 18, 2017 in East Lansing, Michigan. Michigan State won the game 107-62. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /

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EAST LANSING, MI – DECEMBER 18: Miles Bridges #22 of the Michigan State Spartans celebrates a second half play with Jaren Jackson Jr. #2 while playing the Houston Baptist Huskies at the Jack T. Breslin Student Events Center on December 18, 2017 in East Lansing, Michigan. Michigan State won the game 107-62. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /

Rebounding: C+

This is an area that has been a strength for Michigan State for most of the season outside of the Duke game, but fans probably got a flashback to that loss to the Blue Devils on Monday night. Houston Baptist is no slouch in the rebounding game, though.

In fact, the Huskies rank 13th in the country in rebounding and are aggressive on the glass, and it showed on Monday against the Spartans. They grabbed 39 rebounds to Michigan State’s 43, but that wasn’t even the most impressive part of their performance on the glass.

While keeping the rebounding battle within four is nice, so is grabbing 24 offensive rebounds. That’s something the Spartans have struggled with, at times, and it came back to bite them against Houston Baptist as this team which is already aggressive on the glass found a way to put up second and third-chance points.

Michigan State played its worst game on the glass since the Duke performance, even if many of the rebounds were long and skipped over the heads of Spartans boxing out.

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