Michigan State basketball<\/a> went into its first away conference game as a 2.5-point favorite, even though the Spartans were just 4-4 and the Cornhuskers were 7-1. Michigan State, going back to its original lineup of AJ Hoggard, Tyson Walker, Jaden Akins, Malik Hall, and Mady Sissoko, looked good in the first half and decent at times in the second. The starters did their job, but Nebraska proved to take advantage when given the chance, and hit their shots when it mattered.<\/p>\nMichigan State would struggle too often during the second half, and gave up a 65-62 point lead with just three minutes remaining. The Spartans now sit below .500 at 4-5, equaling the worst nine-game record to open the season for Tom Izzo. Michigan State is officially in trouble.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHere is the good, great, bad, and ugly from MSU\u2019s second straight Big Ten loss.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nGood: 3-point shooting<\/b><\/h3>\n
Far too often this season, Michigan State\u2019s 3-point shooting has found it\u2019s way to the “bad” or even “ugly” portion of this series. After being top three in the nation last season in 3-point shooting, MSU has been downright terrible from deep this year. <\/span><\/p>\nThat, however, was not an issue on Sunday evening against Nebraska. <\/span><\/p>\nOutside a cold start for Tyson Walker, almost all the Spartan starters looked great from deep. As a team, MSU shot 47 percent from three, a mark much higher than their average this season. The starters went 7-for-15 from 3-point range, and that\u2019s including the aforementioned cold start from Walker.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe 3-point shooting was abundant for both teams, unfortunately, but it is extremely promising to see the Spartans begin to get out of their shooting slump from deep. Good shooters will go cold at times. It\u2019s inevitable. But what differentiates them from good shooters and makes them great, is their ability to keep shooting with confidence. Eventually, they will find their shot again. It\u2019s all about staying afloat until they do. And it seems the Spartans have found it once again. <\/span><\/p>\nGreat: Starter production, minus Mady Sissoko<\/b><\/h3>\n
On Sunday evening, four of the five starters finished the game in double figures. As already mentioned, Tyson Walker got off to a rough start, but the rest of the Spartan starters not named Mady Sissoko had great showings. Malik Hall led the way for Michigan State basketball with 22 points. AJ Hoggard would finish with 12, and Akins with 10. Even with his sluggish start, Walker ended with 17 points, 15 of which came in the second half. He would hit five straight buckets in the second half, during which no other Spartan was able to score. <\/span><\/p>\nWalker was essentially the only one who was able to score in the final 10 minutes, and even he wasn\u2019t able to get a basket over the final three minutes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nEven with the somewhat cold streaks during the game, and Walker\u2019s slow start, the MSU starters played extremely well. About as well as you could have asked them to. I attribute the lack of production to start the second half and to finish the game to the shortcomings of the Spartan bench players. That, and Mady Sissoko. More on him in a little.<\/span><\/p>\nBad: Bench production, plus Mady Sissoko<\/b><\/h3>\n
Quite the opposite of Michigan State\u2019s starter production, the bench was essentially non-existent on Sunday night. <\/span><\/p>\nEven with averaging 15.5 minutes for the bench against Nebraska, Coen Carr led the way with just four points. Going a combined 4-for-12 from the field, Michigan State\u2019s bench players forced essentially all offense to come from the starters. While the starters did their best in one of their best performances of the year as we just discussed, getting zero production from your bench is similar to tying one hand behind your back during a fight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019ve added Sissoko to this category because he was downright bad on Sunday night. After being back in the starting lineup, Sissoko provided zero (0) points, and just three (3) rebounds. That is absolutely unacceptable from your 6-foot-9, 250-pound center. On top of his lack of offense, Sissoko looked absolutely lost on the defensive end. The Sissoko experiment has to end. Even though not everything we\u2019ve seen from Xavier Booker this season has been pretty, I think almost every Spartan would rather watch him and his growing pains than watch another game in which No. 22 is trotted out there. <\/span><\/p>\nMake the move, Tom. <\/span><\/p>\nUgly: Tom Izzo and his stance on the transfer portal<\/strong><\/h3>\nThis trend has been slowly becoming more and more of an issue as the years pass on. It\u2019s no secret that Tom Izzo despises the transfer portal. Despite his best player coming to Michigan State basketball by way of the portal, Izzo has repeatedly bashed it as well as the players and coaches utilizing it. Which brings us to this season. It was apparent two years ago that Mady Sissoko was not able to make the expected jump to become a competent Big Ten center. Anyone watching last year\u2019s team could also tell that neither Carson Cooper nor Jaxon Kohler had All-Big Ten written on them. And yet, Izzo refused to go into the portal to address the need down low. <\/span><\/p>\nEven before Kohler went down with his foot injury, Michigan State basketball was soft and ill-equipped at the five, and that is even more painfully obvious now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nIt isn\u2019t just the five position that has suffered due to Tom\u2019s inability to adjust to the new college basketball landscape. Michigan State lacks any bench production at the three, which could have been addressed via the portal as well. No one is saying that Tom must go out and grab the top transfer player available, but even just adding depth from a veteran player looking for a new start would do wonders for this team. You hate to say it, but Tom Izzo and his loyalty only to guys he recruited mirrors Mark Dantonio in his final years more and more each day. I love Izzo. I loved Dantonio. Both will be\/already have been undone by their devote loyalty.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ugly loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[59,228,190,189,504],"class_list":["post-9838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-featured","tag-mady-sissoko","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9838","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=9838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}