Michigan State Basketball: Positives and negatives from Northwestern loss

There were very few positives and a whole lot of negatives from Michigan State basketball’s Big Ten-opening loss to Northwestern.

Losing to Northwestern was never on the list of things to do this past weekend for Tom Izzo, but his Spartans showed up to Welsh-Ryan Arena and played 40 minutes of bad basketball.

Sure, there were flashes of this team making runs and looking like the No. 4 team in the country, but for the most part, Michigan State was just completely off. Open shots weren’t falling, layups were being missed, 50/50 balls were being lost and the defense was getting torched. It was one of the worst MSU performances in years under Izzo.

And he admitted that in his post-game presser.

Confused was one word Izzo used to describe Sunday night’s showing in Evanston. That pretty much sums up all Spartan fans’ feelings regarding a 14-point loss to a 3-1 Northwestern team that had yet to beat anyone with a pulse before Sunday. How does a 6-0 team with a week off look this bad?

Izzo is surely going to use this tape as a lesson for his guys, especially since the starting five had its worst game of the season. In fact, Aaron Henry was sloppy, Rocket Watts was ice-cold, Joey Hauser was off and Joshua Langford was solid before fouling out early.

Let’s get into the positives and negatives from the upset loss in Evanston.