Michigan State Basketball: Indiana loss hurts, but will be blip on radar
Losing to Indiana at home in front of College GameDay hurts, but Michigan State basketball will make sure it’s just a blip on the season’s radar.
One bad loss. It happens all the time in college basketball. Teams get comfortable, start thinking they’re unbeatable and then they go down in shocking fashion. Michigan State was subject to the latest head-scratching loss this season, but no one believes that what we saw on Saturday night is what we can expect moving forward.
Except those who easily panic.
Michigan State overlooked an Indiana team that had lost seven straight games and was due for a win. The Hoosiers were directly on the NCAA Tournament bubble and knew that letting the losing streak stretch to eight-plus would likely mean the end to any March Madness hopes.
The Spartans had just suffered their first loss of the year, were the subject of College GameDay and everyone was picking them to just roll the Hoosiers at home.
It was a recipe for disaster — and it showed.
Michigan State came out flat with low energy and the crowd got quiet, especially during a seven-minute stretch in the first half where the Spartans were held scoreless.
The offense was lifeless while the defense couldn’t get the stops it needed when trying to make a run. All of the 50-50 balls seemed to be going Indiana’s way and the Hoosiers out-toughed the Spartans on the glass, 48-40.
Oh yeah, and Michigan State shot an embarrassing 8-for-22 at the free throw line.
Anything that could have gone wrong, did. Michigan State had a chance to take the lead with seconds left in overtime and Cassius Winston’s would-be go-ahead layup was blocked by a fingernail — literally.
If anything, this will go to show this team that it’s not invincible.
No, this has nothing to do with the Josh Langford injury like people want to use as the excuse, but it was just a poor performance and even worse effort. This team was 7-1 without Langford and looked like a dominant force in the Big Ten, but it looked lazy on Saturday night.
Next. MSU basketball: Game-by-game predictions for February. dark
For all of those worrying about one bad loss, don’t. It’s a blip on the radar. Everyone suffers these “what the heck?” type of losses in a long college basketball season, so just be glad the Spartans got theirs out of the way.