{"id":1544,"date":"2023-02-25T16:37:17","date_gmt":"2023-02-25T21:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=1544"},"modified":"2023-02-25T16:37:17","modified_gmt":"2023-02-25T21:37:17","slug":"michigan-state-basketball-tyson-walker-all-big-ten-first-teamer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=1544","title":{"rendered":"Michigan State basketball: Tyson Walker playing like All-Big Ten first-teamer"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Michigan State basketball may have lost to Iowa in meltdown fashion, but we learned that Tyson Walker is elite.<\/h2>\n<p>For a few minutes this afternoon, I was trying to come up with some takeaways from a <a href=\"http:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/tom-izzo-blame-massive-meltdown-loss-at-iowa\/\">Michigan State basketball<\/a> win over Iowa. And then the unthinkable happened.<\/p>\n<p>Iowa stormed back from a 13-point deficit late in the second half to beat Michigan State 112-106 in overtime. It was one of the most shocking losses of the year and baffling would be the perfect word to describe what happened in Iowa City on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>But there was one major bright spot in an otherwise nightmare loss: Tyson Walker.<\/p>\n<p>The offense was clicking all game long and a big reason for that success was Walker. He was on fire all afternoon long, finishing with 31 points, which led all scorers, on 11-of-15 shooting.<\/p>\n<p>This was the best offensive showing of the season for the Spartans and it&#8217;s a shame that it was wasted due to poor defense and bad coaching, but Walker really came into his own for a second straight outing. Last time out, he scored 23 points on 8-for-15 shooting and helped Michigan State past Indiana, 80-65.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, his 31 points led the way and he was borderline unstoppable for 40 minutes before going quiet in the overtime session.<\/p>\n<p>Still, he&#8217;s proving that he&#8217;s one of the best guards in the conference and a legitimate All-Big Ten first-team candidate. He could go out and score 20 points a night if he wanted to.<\/p>\n<p>When Walker is at his best, he&#8217;s shooting at least 15 times and the offense is creating for him. He&#8217;s great off the dribble and can pull up for a nice mid-range bucket or take it to the rim for an easy two. The senior guard has been scoring at will lately and it&#8217;s why Michigan State has looked much better over the past couple of weeks despite the record not showing that.<\/p>\n<p>If the season ended today, Walker would have to at least be considered for one of those All-Big Ten first-team spots at guard. He&#8217;s been that good this season and especially in the past month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tyson Walker was a bright spot once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[59,190,189,202],"class_list":["post-1544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-featured","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-tyson-walker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}