Michigan State basketball has some major issues to fix after Michigan loss

Michigan State may have the most talented squad in college basketball, but that doesn’t mean a thing when it doesn’t play together as a team. The Spartans have some questions to answer before looking ahead to the postseason.

It’s been said numerous times in the last few months that Tom Izzo has never had a team as good as this one, at least talent wise. At a minimum, the ones compared to this squad are from the National Championship year (2000). The sentiment around the players on this team have been repeated on various media outlets.

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Miles Bridges is a future NBA player that decided to return for his sophomore season. Cassius Winston is the next great Izzo point guard that will lead the team to a Final Four. Joshua Langford may be one of Izzo’s best defenders and is a smaller Draymond Green or Denzel Valentine. Nick Ward can become the next Zach Randolph. Jaren Jackson Jr. is another NBA lottery pick and the latest to be called a “unicorn” in the basketball world.

Tum Tum Nairn is the best leader Izzo has had since Mateen Cleaves. Matt McQuaid is a knockdown shooter that can catch fire. Kenny Goins added a three-point shot to his resume in the offseason. Gavin Schilling is the best ball screen defender in the country. The list goes on for this team and I haven’t even mentioned Xavier Tillman, who suddenly saw 12 important minutes against Michigan on Saturday.

Unfortunately, basketball is a team game and none of those above statements matter if they can’t all come together. And that’s been the case since the 30-point win over Maryland. The Spartans have looked out of sorts and able to lose to anyone on the Big Ten schedule, the home overtime win to Rutgers showed that.

There are multiple issues that have shown up in the last week and if this team can’t dispose of them, a National Championship will be out of sight. Getting to the Sweet 16 may even become difficult if this team doesn’t turn things around.

The biggest issue is that Michigan State’s backcourt, which was the team’s biggest problem coming into the season, can’t defend any guards with speed. Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman exposed Langford on Saturday and Zavier Simpson did the same to Winston. Of course, Winston’s lack of defense isn’t a secret. CJ Jackson, Corey Sanders and now Simpson have exposed him in the matter of seven days.

One of my friends said it best during the Michigan game, “I could score on Cassius, easily.” If you’re wondering, my friend didn’t play collegiate basketball and is not six-feet tall. Against any team with guards that can drive to the hoop, the Spartans almost have no answer unless Jaren Jackson helps out on every drive. When the NCAA tournament comes, the last problem you want to have is a lack of defense on the perimeter.

The next issue is MSU’s offense, which has suddenly turned inept in the matter of three games. If the Spartans don’t get open looks on the break, they have become incompetent at running a half-court offense as long as the opposing team defends tight. That’s what happened in the second half against Michigan unless Jackson or Bridges got easy looks in the paint. The offense has dwindled down to passing the ball on the perimeter, waiting for good looks that aren’t going to happen because no one is working hard enough to get open. When Bridges decides to take things into his own hands, he either turns it over or goes into isolation mode, which can be good at times, but more often than not, is bad.

And of course, this can’t be an article doubting Michigan State without a jab to Izzo. He’s a Hall of Fame coach, but he makes a lot of questionable decisions throughout a season and that was highlighted in the Michigan loss. From roughly the 13:30 to 11:30 in the second half, the lineup was Nairn, McQuaid, Bridges, Jackson and Tillman. For a minute after that, Izzo decided to sub in Langford and Goins for Bridges and Jackson. This didn’t lose the game, but when you need points, Nairn and McQuaid usually aren’t the answer, especially when Ward isn’t playing down low.

That’s a small piece to the puzzle with the bigger thing in my mind being Izzo’s penchant to keep riding the same type of lineup even when it’s not working. Moritz Wagner was a problem all game, dominating for 27 points, yet Izzo’s only move was to play Tillman more, with Jackson rarely getting a chance to use his length against the German. Izzo thought it was best to have a size advantage on the offensive end with Jackson against whoever instead of stopping Wagner, which clearly didn’t work.

Why didn’t Izzo move Bridges to the four and Jackson to the five? He’s done that at times throughout the season, but when Wagner was dominating MSU’s bigs, he never considered it. Why wouldn’t the lineup of Nairn, Winston, Langford, Bridges and Jackson work against what Michigan was doing?

Sure, Winston couldn’t stop Abdur-Rahkman, but it’s not like he was doing anything to thwart Simpson from easy layups. If that’s your worry, Matt McQuaid is still on the team (I think). Langford may have had trouble against Charles Matthews, but the Kentucky transfer struggled to do anything offensively for most of the game.

Why not put Jackson on Wagner and see what happens? Instead, we got to see Wagner hit open threes on Ward and draw fouls on Tillman for most of the game. Gavin Schilling stopped the threes, but he was also blown by a couple times. Sure, Tillman played good at times, but when it mattered most, he couldn’t stop Wagner in the post.

There’s no doubt the Spartans were outplayed and they never truly had a good hold on the game and that’s credit to Michigan. But when you stack up these teams, there’s no way Michigan should beat Michigan State, especially at the Breslin.

After Wagner dominated in the first half, you figure out a way to stop him in the second and the answer probably isn’t to put a freshman, who doesn’t average more than 10 minutes per game, on him. If Tillman provided the same type of offense as Ward, it’d be a different story, but he rarely looks to attack offensively.

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If Michigan State continues to play like this, it can say goodbye to a National Championship and a Final Four. Heck, the Big Ten regular season title is all but gone at this point with Purdue romping teams and Ohio State with an incredibly favorable schedule. Either way, one thing is clear. The Spartans have to dig deep to become a team again and reel off some wins to get back on track before looking toward the NCAA tournament.