Michigan State Basketball: There’s nothing positive to say after OSU loss

After losing yet another Big Ten game to drop to 2-6 in league play, there’s really nothing positive to say about Michigan State basketball.

Another game, another underwhelming performance.

Michigan State is now 2-6 in Big Ten play (2-6!). Unreal.

The Spartans weren’t expected to win on Sunday over No. 13 Ohio State but keeping it competitive would have been a step in the right direction. That didn’t happen.

Michigan State was hanging with the Buckeyes in the first half before crumbling right before halftime and falling behind 42-30 heading into the locker room. That lead only extended to 20 in the second half as the Spartans found themselves down 61-41 with about 10 minutes left.

Sure, they did make it a little more interesting in the final minutes, even trimming that Ohio State lead to single digits. But the game was decided by halftime.

The body language of these players was just poor at the end of the first half and early in the second half. They settled for bad shots and the defense and rebounding was mediocre. Of course the offense was struggling again but the defense matched those struggles for the first time since early January.

Guys who needed to finally step up after long cold streaks (Joey Hauser, Rocket Watts, Josh Langford) struggled again. Hauser did have 11 points on 5-of-11 shooting and Langford finished with 14 points, but neither looked all that great. Watts struggled yet again as his confidence seemed to dip even lower.

The Spartans shot just 33 percent from the floor and 5-for-24 from deep.

Michigan State had another sloppy performance with double-digit turnovers and about two dozen fouls. The defense didn’t block many shots nor force many turnovers from the Buckeyes.

There was just nothing really positive to take away from this loss, especially when 23 of the Spartans’ 62 points came from the free throw line.

Missed layups, silly fouls, sloppy turnovers, poor coaching, bad body language, mediocre rebounding and no confidence or progress being shown. This team is defeated.

So wait, maybe there was one positive: this team made a good chunk of its free throws.

Sigh.