Michigan State basketball fans are angry after Duke loss – and they should be

Michigan State basketball fans are heated after an ugly loss to Duke dropped them to 5-3 on the season — and they should be angry.

It was Tuesday morning and you could already see a line forming at the Breslin Center. Students began been camping out, hoping to get the best seats in the house for the biggest non-conference game of the season at the Breslin Center.

Duke was finally coming to town for the first time in over a decade. The Blue Devils were making a stop in East Lansing two games removed from a home loss to Stephen F. Austin while the Spartans were just 5-2 on the season after beginning No. 1. But that didn’t take away from the luster of this one. It was No. 10 vs. No. 11 in a monster showdown.

Unfortunately, it didn’t feel that way about 5-6 minutes in.

The crowd was electric. It was Draymond Green’s jersey retirement night so there was a little extra electricity in the air for that. Even the ESPN crew had a tough time hearing anything right before the tip as they admitted the atmosphere was something else.

And then all that energy, all of that home-court advantage Spartan fans conjured up, was wasted.

The crowd showed more energy than the players, and that’s something completely uncharacteristic for a Tom Izzo-coached team. It seemed like the life was sucked out of the arena by halftime and the only thing keeping the fans in their seats was the Draymond ceremony.

Then the team came back out, put together a little run and cut the Duke lead to just eight before the Blue Devils continued feeding Vernon Carey Jr. in the post where he finished with about a half-dozen and-ones, it seemed.

A once-rocking Breslin fell quiet. The lead stretched to 22 before Michigan State trimmed it back down to 12 by the final buzzer, but it was complete and utter disappointment.

Cassius Winston struggled, Xavier Tillman had ups and major downs, Aaron Henry was a ghost and Rocket Watts fell cold again. More importantly, there didn’t seem to be any fight or sense of pride.

Michigan State built a proud basketball program and it didn’t seem like the case on Tuesday night as Duke mopped the floor with the Spartans — getting run off your own court is never a good look.

Fans took to social media to voice their frustrations and anger, and they had a good reason to do so — they were let down. It’s one thing to show up and play a tough game only to lose a close one and it’s another to go through the motions with little effort, toughness or fire and lose by double-digits. Losing a hard-fought game would have been OK, but this wasn’t.

Sure, any loss would have been criticized, for good reason, but to show the kind of effort they did on their home court during Draymond night was unacceptable.

Michigan State fans deserve better and they were robbed of a great experience for the biggest non-conference home game in a decade — and that’s a shame.

Be angry, Michigan State fans, you have every right.