Michigan State basketball<\/a> looked exactly like it was expected to look to begin the season on Saturday against Baylor. The Spartans combined a hot start with elite defense to break the game wide open almost immediately.<\/p>\nMichigan State took a 45-17 lead into halftime, and, outside the first three minutes of the second half in which Baylor looked to get into somewhat of a groove, they did not let off until the final whistle. Entering a very winnable stretch of basketball, this win was incredibly important for MSU.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s take a look at the good, great, bad, and ugly from the Spartans’ blowout win at Little Caesars Arena.<\/p>\n
Good: Offensive efficiency<\/b><\/h3>\n
The Spartans’ offense has been anemic at times this season. Outside of Tyson Walker, there have been multiple stretches this season where MSU hasn\u2019t had a go-to scorer when needed. Across the board, guards, wings, and centers have struggled at times. That was clearly not the case on Saturday against Baylor. From the moment Tyson Walker hit his opening three, Michigan State was off and running. Walker would score 18 of his 25 points in the first half to lead the way. As a team, MSU shot incredibly well from deep. Even with their disappointing season average from 3-point range, the Spartans shot 67 percent from deep. Tre Holloman, Tyson Walker, Jaden Akins, and Xavier Booker all got in on the fun from long range.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nSpeaking of Booker, Michigan State\u2019s big men looked great against Baylor as well. Carson Cooper and Mady Sissoko both looked to be comfortable and in control down low, even if they didn\u2019t exactly fill the stat book. <\/span><\/p>\nAll in all, MSU had possession after possession that resembled a well-oiled machine. Great offensive showing from the Spartans. <\/span><\/p>\nGreat: Defense<\/b><\/h3>\n
Michigan State basketball set the tone on the very first possession against Baylor. On the Bears’ first offensive possession, Michigan State forced a shot clock violation. It didn\u2019t get any easier for Baylor as MSU was hounding them the entire game. Michigan State forced the Bears into 21 turnovers, almost double their season average of 12. Six different players recorded a steal, Tyson Walker and A.J Hoggard leading the way with five and three, respectively.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBaylor is among the nation’s best in how many points they are averaging per game. Going into the matchup with the Spartans, Baylor was averaging 91.1 points, good for fifth in the country. Thanks to Michigan State\u2019s elite defense, their average dropped to just 88.4, eighth best. Holding a team averaging 91 points per game to just 17 in the first half is nothing short of incredible. <\/span><\/p>\nMichigan State will need to continue this in just a few days with Indiana State coming to town, who is 10th with 88 points per game.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nMichigan State\u2019s defense is now up to No. 8 in the country after the stellar performance on Saturday. <\/span><\/p>\nBad: Jaden Akins’ shooting<\/b><\/h3>\n
Even with the great offensive showing from Michigan State, Jaden Akins still was struggling to find his shot. He would finish with just five points on 2-for-6 shooting. Granted, one of his two makes from 3-point range, he still has not gotten into his offensive groove. After the game, Tom Izzo mentioned that Akins’ shot has still been off, but good shooters normally figure it out eventually.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nWhat was most concerning was the multiple times Jeremy Fears was shouting to Akins to pass the ball to get an offensive set going, and he shrugged him off and went with an isolation look. Neither time did it result in a basket for the Spartans. The last thing you want is to start forcing things if you are Jaden. He is a great player, and his offense will come around. But forming bad habits and forcing isolation looks when the offense is rolling will only hurt his play and this team. <\/span><\/p>\nUgly: Nothing<\/b><\/h3>\n
It\u2019s not often that the Spartans come away from a game with a top-10 opponent having done nothing overtly terrible. Michigan State basketball played one of the most perfect first halves I have seen in quite some time. There was almost nothing to pick apart in their first 20 minutes. The second half was just about the same. <\/span><\/p>\nIf there was anything to nitpick, the first two to three minutes starting the second half saw the Spartans with back-to-back-to-back turnovers and Baylor baskets. For a second, there was some concern that Michigan State was going to revert to the way they had played the last few games. However, a quick timeout from Tom Izzo and Michigan State was off and rolling again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe confidence that will be instilled in this team thanks to this win is paramount after the rough start to the season. Having next to nothing to complain about against a very good, undefeated Baylor team is great.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Confidence was oozing from this team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[199,59,205,190,189,504,202],"class_list":["post-10147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-a-j-hoggard","tag-featured","tag-jaden-akins","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-news","tag-tyson-walker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}