After dropping a third game in four tries, Michigan State basketball will return home to face Xavier Booker and UCLA on Tuesday night with some NCAA Tournament seeding on the line.
Michigan State is essentially eliminated from the Big Ten title race. The Big Ten is unfortunately Michigan’s to lose this season as the Wolverines sit alone in first place with one loss and the second-place teams have three. The Spartans just lost their fourth Big Ten game with six regular-season games left, so they’d need a miracle to win the conference title.
If they want to have a chance at that miracle, they’ll need to begin dominating throughout the rest of the regular season, starting with UCLA.
It won’t be easy, however. The Bruins could have these advantages over the Spartans.
1. Three-point shooting
An area in which I believe Michigan State has regressed the most over the past three weeks has been its 3-point defense. Obviously the defense overall hasn’t been quite as effective in recent weeks, but the Spartans’ 3-point defense has been a real issue that has led to some ugly losses.
Michigan State struggled to defend the three against Minnesota and Wisconsin, leading to the last two road losses. Even against Rutgers on the road, Michigan State just didn’t look clean defensively.
To make matters worse, UCLA is a better 3-point shooting team than most in the Big Ten, making a little over 38 percent on the season. The Bruins have the shooting advantage from deep and Michigan State’s 3-point defense is struggling lately — that’s not the best recipe for success.
2. Backcourt production
A week ago, I wouldn’t have had this UCLA advantage on here, but the Bruins just got Skyy Clark back after he missed a month of action and that means they have a more productive backcourt.
Clark is averaging 13.1 points, Donovan Dent (who MSU saw in the NCAA Tournament with New Mexico last season) is averaging 13.5 points, Trent Perry is at 12.7, and Eric Dailey Jr. is at 11.0. The only Michigan State guard who’s averaging over 10 points per game is Jeremy Fears (15.1) and the next-closest is Kur Teng at 7.0.
UCLA has more weapons on the perimeter which could be a problem for Michigan State.
3. Taking care of the basketball
Another area of weakness in recent weeks for Michigan State has been turnovers. The Spartans are averaging 11.8 turnovers per game and that’s just way too many in the Big Ten.
It’s OK to have 5-10 turnovers every outing, but when you’re consistently in that 12-15 range, you’re not going to have a lot of success offensively. Michigan State needs to cut those down.
On the flip side, UCLA protects the ball much better. The bruins average just 9.5 turnovers per game which shows that they don’t make too many mistakes. They still obviously turn the ball over, but they’re going to make the smarter play more often than not. Michigan State needs to take notes.