Michigan State Basketball: Joey Hauser, Rocket Watts are keys to turnaround

Joey Hauser and Rocket Watts are more important to the potential turnaround of Michigan State basketball than people may realize.

Michigan State looked like it was turning a corner. A road win over Nebraska ended a three-game losing streak and then a 23-point home win over No. 15 Rutgers started a new winning streak. The team was playing good defense and looked completely different than the one that was getting smacked by Northwestern and Minnesota.

But on Friday night, Michigan State went back to its old ways with a one-point heart-breaking home loss to Purdue. The Spartans were up by 17 points in the second half and were playing elite defense again, but Trevion Williams dominated in the post and led the Boilermakers to a 55-54 win.

The loss, while it may feel season-crushing, wasn’t completely on the players — though a 12-minute field goal drought didn’t help. Tom Izzo had one of his worst coaching performances in the second half which led to Williams scoring 24 points and doing whatever he wanted down the stretch.

Michigan State was a couple of coaching adjustments away from a three-game winning streak and a second straight blowout win over a competent team.

Instead, the Spartans are staring down a missed NCAA Tournament with an 8-4 record and 2-4 start to conference play.

There is one thing that’s be a bigger key than people realize: the play of the duo of Joey Hauser and Rocket Watts. The emergence of AJ Hoggard at the point has been big and so has the rise of Aaron Henry which has also aided the slight recent turnaround, but two of the Spartans’ “big four” have been non-existent in recent weeks which has led to a downfall of the offense.

Watts, who has scored in double figures just once in seven games, and Hauser, who has just 29 points over the last four games combined after a career outing vs. Wisconsin, have been mediocre, at best, lately.

The Spartans need Watts to be one of the main options on offense. When he struggles, the offense is much less effective. In fact, the Spartans are just 1-4 in games that Watts scores less than nine points. When he scores nine or more, Michigan State is 7-0.

As for Hauser, Michigan State is 2-3 when he scores less than 10 points and all of those games have happened over the past few weeks. Since scoring 27 against Wisconsin, he has just 29 points over the past four contests with zero double-digit scoring performances.

So that just goes to show that Michigan State struggles when these two guys struggle. They add more scoring options for MSU, but without a go-to guy like Cassius Winston this year, not having them play well is almost a death sentence for the Spartans.

When both guys score in double figures in the same game, Michigan State is 4-0.

If I’m Tom Izzo, I look at these numbers and make sure I help them find their confidence and make sure they get back on track because without them, this team is scoring just 54 points in an embarrassing loss to Purdue.