Michigan State basketball: 3 quick reactions from tough loss to Purdue
By Nate Rhoades
Michigan State basketball squared off against Purdue in the semifinals of the Big Ten Tournament. There was a lot of good to come from this game.
Michigan State battled against a tough Purdue team on Saturday night. The Spartans showed a lot of fight in this one but it just was not quite enough.
Early in this game, the Spartans watched both of their point guards roll their ankles 10 seconds apart from each other. Tyson Walker did not see much more time after that injury while AJ Hoggard was able to keep the ankle loose and play a career-high 34 minutes.
The Spartans were hanging around in the first half going shot for shot with Purdue in a tightly-contested game. Around the eight-minute mark in the first half, Purdue was able to find a little more momentum and rhythm on the offensive end. This gave Purdue a seven-point lead heading into halftime. These Spartans were not able to find any offensive rhythm. They were getting good open looks but they just weren’t falling.
In the second half, Purdue went up by as many as 13 points. Hoggard got the team going and the Spartans willed their way to tie the game at one point. The Spartans fell apart defensively at the end and gave up back-to-back 3-pointers and they never got any closer.
There were many positives from this loss and a few things they can grow on for their first-round game in the Big Dance.
3. Turnovers were not an issue
This is the first game in years that I can remember watching that the Spartans did not have a ton of turnovers in either half. Michigan State finished the game with only four turnovers. Nothing silly or ridiculous was happening. No traveling calls, no stepping out of bound, not a ton of bad passes.
This was a bright spot for the Spartans.
This is the Spartans’ second game in a row where they’ve had fewer than 10 turnovers in the entire game. This is the first time MSU had fewer than five since the Cassius Winston-led Spartans faced Binghamton in the 2019-20 season. The Spartans are continuing to grow on this style of play and it is helping them get within reach of winning big games.
If the Spartans can trend downward in turnovers, this could bode well for them come the first round of the tournament. They have not lost back-to-back first-round games in the NCAA Tournament in Tom Izzo’s tenure as head coach and with these few turnovers, they will continue this trend.