Michigan State basketball<\/a> went on the road Thursday night for its second straight matchup in the state of Illinois, this time taking on the No. 10 Fighting Illini. The Spartans once again came away with a loss, 71-68.<\/p>\n That makes two straight losses in a row for the Spartans and a 9-7 record. To make matters even worse, that drops them to 1-4 in conference play.<\/p>\n Here are three takeaways from the loss to Illinois.<\/p>\n Let me preface this by saying that Tyson Walker<\/a> still had a solid game. He finished with 17 points on 8-of-17 shooting, so not great but not terrible either. The part where Tyson wasn\u2019t on in this game was from 3-point range. He shot 1-for-7 from deep which is very uncharacteristic of him.<\/p>\n Some of those shots were extremely unlucky. I can think of two or three that were halfway down and popped out at the last second. Nothing you can do when that happens. But when his shot isn\u2019t falling others need to step up.<\/p>\n We also missed Tyson for about a seven-minutes stretch in the second half after he picked up a questionable third foul and injured his leg. I thought the guys did a good job at staying in the game without Tyson on the floor, but it seemed like the second he checked back in everyone expected him to just take over. This team may be becoming a little too reliant on Walker\u2019s heroics, so when he\u2019s struggling or on the bench with foul trouble, others need to step up more regularly.<\/p>\n1. Someone has to step up when Tyson Walker is ‘struggling’<\/h3>\n
2. Malik Hall: The good and the bad<\/h3>\n