Michigan State Basketball: Good, great, bad, and ugly from loss to Tennessee

Ugly: Slow, sluggish start

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, Michigan State basketball got off to an extremely slow start on Sunday. As noted already, MSU did a great job applying pressure from the jump against Tennessee. This forced them to hit their shots from outside. And Tennessee did just that. Even though just two Volunteers essentially carried them, Dalton Knecht had 28 and Jordan Gainey had 20, the pair could not miss. Add this to the Spartan’s lackluster, careless offense to start the game, and Michigan State found themselves down incredibly bad just five minutes into the exhibition.

Turnovers, ineffectual offensive sets, and missed shots spelled a terrible, slow, sluggish start for MSU.

Even though they showed incredible poise to fight their way back, they made it extremely difficult on themselves. Their start forced an 18-point comeback midway through the first. Slow starts have plagued MSU for years now, and it was a trend I was hoping would not carry over into this new, promising season.

It’s just one game so we will give the Spartans a break. But, starting as they did Sunday afternoon will not get MSU to where they want to be this year.