Things didn’t go quite as planned for Michigan State on Friday night against UCLA in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals, losing 88-84, eliminating the Spartans in their first game.
Michigan State will now have to sweat out either a 2-seed or a 3-seed in the NCAA Tournament, which is better than being on the bubble obviously. Sweating out a 2/3 seed on Selection Sunday is much better than the alternative. These are good problems to have.
What’d we learn from the disappointing loss on Friday night?
1. Michigan State’s perimeter defense was awful
This was one of the worst defensive performances that I can remember from a Tom Izzo-coached Michigan State team. Any time the Spartans would make a run, they would lose track of someone on the perimeter on the other end and it would lead to a back-breaking three to thwart darn near every potential change of momentum.
The picks and switches were killing the Spartans and they were over-committing which led to a lot of open Bruins around the perimeter for a plethora of uncontested threes.
UCLA got its lick back for Michigan State’s 14-for-27 performance from deep back in East Lansing three weeks ago, going 13-for-27 against the Spartans on Friday night.
2. There’s no quit in this team
Michigan State got punched in the mouth a little bit on Friday night. UCLA had an answer for pretty much every single run that the Spartans went on until the very end.
There were several key moments when it would have been easier to just accept defeat after a back-breaking bucket or 50/50 play won by UCLA. The Spartans didn’t do that. There were several moments where I thought to myself “yeah, this is over” before Michigan State gutted out another mini run to stay in the game.
The Spartans were down 11 with a few minutes left, but they didn’t quite, put together a nice little run, and cut UCLA’s lead down to two with less than a minute left.
Some boneheaded mistakes kept the comeback just out of reach, however.
I loved seeing that this team didn’t quite. That bodes well for next weekend.
3. These slow starts are going to kill this team
The slow starts are really starting to burn this team out. It feels like the Spartans are playing from behind more often than not, and that’s a horrendous place to be at this point in the season.
Izzo has to figure out the right buttons to push for the next few weeks because a slow starts in the NCAA Tournament is going to mean an early exit. This team is playing with fire and it’s going to burn them if they don’t start coming out fast.
Hopefully Friday’s slow starts was just rust related, but they now have an entire week off until their first NCAA Tournament game. Not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.