Michigan State Basketball: Good, great, bad, and ugly from loss at Illinois

After not getting any help from its bench, Michigan State basketball drops another conference game on Thursday night, 71-68 at Illinois.

Tom Izzo has never started the year 1-4 in Big Ten play. After last week’s Northwestern loss, A.J. Hoggard called Thursday’s game against Illinois a must-win. Unfortunately, the flaws were on full display as Michigan State basketball fell in a close one in Champaign.

After battling back from a quick deficit to start the game, Michigan State went blow for blow with Illinois for most of the game. Even though it felt as though the Fighting Illini had the game in hand, MSU went into halftime only being down by three. The Spartans would eventually take a six-point lead, but down the stretch, their lack of offense proved to do them in. Illinois would end up beating Michigan State 71-68 after some last-second free throws sealed the deal. 

Michigan State basketball is essentially on life-support at this point and will enter a stretch of play in which they must win at least 80 percent of their next 15 games.

For now, let’s jump into the good, great bad, and ugly from Thursday night’s loss. 

Good: Starting guards

This season, Tyson Walker has been nothing short of great. A.J. Hoggard has joined him in his elite play over the last month. Jaden Akins and Malik Hall seem to have random games in which they, too, carry this team. On Thursday night, all three starting guards (and also Hall) for Michigan State played extremely well. Even though the offense was not flowing properly, more on that in a minute, the Spartan guards and forwards carried this team offensively. Tyson led the way with 17 points, A.J. had 16, Hall scored 14, and Akins had 13. 

Granted, Walker, Akins, and Hoggard all missed six or seven open 3-pointers to close out the game and would eventually allow the Illini to pull ahead, but they did pretty much everything else offensively. The MSU guards have played at a high level for the last six weeks, and that continued on Thursday night. If they had just a little help elsewhere, the Spartans steal one in Champaign. 

Great: Nothing — instead, here’s another bad

I don’t think the Spartans did anything great on Thursday night. Did they play as poorly as they did against Northwestern? No. But that doesn’t mean they played great. Instead, here is another bad from them, as there was plenty. Their bench offense and production were nonexistent. And I don’t mean they didn’t carry their weight, I mean outside of two dunks from Coen Carr, the bench did not score a single point for the Spartans on Thursday. The starters for Michigan State were responsible for 94 percent of their scoring total. This was heralded as a team that has good depth and experience, and yet, they were horrendous on Thursday night. 

In comparison, Illinois only had two bench players check in against us. And yet, they score three times the scoring than our four-person bench had. That’s unacceptable and has to change if this team is to make any sort of noise in the Big Ten Tournament. 

Bad: Free throw attempts

Throughout the game, most of the Spartans’ offense came from just dribbling around and then a guard driving to the basket. We will get into that more in the next section, but one thing that was clear was that Michigan State basketball was not going to get any calls from the refs. It seemed like time and time again, Michigan State would drive to the hoop, muscle up a shot, and regardless if it was made or missed, no foul was called. Michigan State struggled terribly from close distance, repeatedly missing from 2-5 feet from the basket, but it’s possible the lack of calls affected this.

The final free throw attempts tell the story. Illinois finished with 22 free throw attempts. MSU had just seven. 

In one instance, in particular, Malik Hall was mugged in the paint by Coleman Hawkins, leading to what Tom Izzo refers to as a turnover for a touchdown. Michigan State had just pulled to within two, and this turnover led to a 7-0 run for Illinois. It was a blatant miss by the refs that changed the course of the game. Michigan State has to be better at forcing the calls down low. 

Ugly: Half-court offense

Michigan State’s half-court offense is a big problem. A problem large enough to warrant its own few articles. On Thursday night, Michigan State could not properly run any predetermined set, nor could they get any sort of isolation down low. The Spartan offense against Illinois was strictly to have the guards dribble in the half-court for 15 seconds, shake open for a jumper, or drive to the basket. While this worked a decent amount, that is asking so much of your guards. It puts the weight of the entire game on them. 

Michigan State basketball currently has zero big man presence, and that truly hinders how this offense can run in the half court. There is a hope that Jaxon Kohler can be back to 100 percent here soon, and he had some of the best footwork of all the bigs, but even a healthy Kohler is not enough to support this team. MSU hasn’t had a true, contributing center since Xavier Tillman, and their half-court offense has been a wreck ever since.