Well, we knew it would come sooner or later, but Michigan State lost its first game of the season on Saturday afternoon, falling to Duke 66-60 at the Breslin Center.
It was a tough loss considering Michigan State looked like they had it in the bag when it went up 45-40 with all the momentum heading into a timeout, but the team just looked lost after that. Cameron Boozer did whatever he wanted in the second half and the Spartans couldn’t buy a layup.
Here are a few other observations from the tough home loss.
1. You’re not going to win many games shooting 21-for-66
Michigan State shot just 21-for-66 from the floor, which isn’t going to win you many games, especially not one against the No. 4 team in the country. Jeremy Fears Jr., Coen Carr, Trey Fort, Cam Ward, and Kur Teng combined to shoot just 5-for-34 from the floor. That cannot happen with four guys who are supposed to be taking care of the scoring.
Carson Cooper, Jaxon Kohler, and Jordan Scott saved the day and kept the Spartans in the game, but it can’t be up to 2-3 guys to carry the team — it has to be a team effort, especially against Duke.
2. Jeremy Fears Jr. is going to grow from this
This was one of the worst offensive games that you’re going to see from Fears. The sophomore point guard finished 0-for-10 from the floor and had just six points with 13 assists to one turnover. He was really good at facilitating, but he can’t have a game like this shooting again. He knows that if he made 1-2 more shots, Michigan State probably wins this game.
The same could be said for Carr.
Fears is addicted to getting better and learning from his mistakes, so I would bet that he’s not going to have another game like this for the rest of the season. We’ll look back at this as a learning moment for the third-year point guard.
3. The zone continues to hurt Izzo, Michigan State
When Cameron Boozer picked up his fourth foul, it forced Duke to play some zone, and Michigan State really struggled against it. It’s like clockwork, whenever a team plays a zone against Izzo and the Spartans, they struggle offensively.
If Michigan State had a better shooting team, the zone wouldn’t have been as difficult to break, but no one other than Scott and Kohler were hitting threes. The shooters really struggled.
Again, this is something that Michigan State is going to learn from.