Posted in michigan state basketball, rant on February 29, 2008 | 7 Comments »
I held off posting these comments last night, but have decided they’re worth sharing.
I’m concerned about Izzo’s approach to this team at the moment. Consider the following from last night’s broadcast:
Musberger and Lavin indicated Izzo’s been praising the team’s play publicly but chastising them privately.
Erin Andrews reported Izzo was not at all pleased with [...]
Posted in game recap, michigan state basketball on February 28, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Wisconsin dismantles Michigan State, 57-42. Unofficial box score here.
It’s almost as if Ken Pomeroy drew up the defensive game plan for Wisconsin. They refused to give MSU any clean looks from 3-point range all game. They had only a handful of breakdowns leading to easy MSU looks around the basket. They [...]
Posted in links, michigan state basketball on February 28, 2008 | No Comments »
Kalin Lucas missed practice Tuesday with a stomach virus, but is good to go tonight.
Basketball graph of the year: Ken Pomeroy looks at shooting percentages by distance from the hoop based on national data. Remarkably, the data indicate shooting percentages are actually higher for shots just beyond the 3-point line than for shots between [...]
Posted in game preview, michigan state basketball on February 27, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Wednesday Night Links
Grant Wahl says Michigan State is one of the top 16 college basketball programs in the nation–placing them in the second tier behind the sextet of Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA, and IU.
Tom Izzo says the Big Ten Network has been a “PR nightmare.”
“We have so many things right now that we’re trying [...]
Posted in big ten, links, michigan state basketball, stats analysis on February 26, 2008 | 3 Comments »
In light of the speculation in the last two posts that Izzo may be ramping up to use MSU’s depth to make a run at the Big Ten Tournament championship, I thought I’d check to see whether past tournament champions have had unusual amounts of depth. In theory, having more players playing significant minutes [...]
Posted in coffee talk, michigan state basketball on February 25, 2008 | 10 Comments »
Rankings Update
In the AP poll, Michigan State held steady at #19 following the two home wins this week. Notre Dame and Vanderbilt leapfrogged us. The three teams are bunched within 5 voting points, though, so no major injustice has been perpetrated against us.
In the coaches’ poll, meanwhile, MSU moved up two spots from [...]
Posted in big ten, links, msu basketball on February 24, 2008 | No Comments »
Michigan 49 Illinois 43
I can only hope this week’s results will boost MSU well above the Illini in the offensive points-per-possession category for good; the two were tied at 1.01 (in conference play) before this week’s action. UMHoops says rebounding was a key and recaps Jalen Rose’s comments to the Crisler crowd. [...]
Posted in game recap, michigan state basketball on February 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The Spartans prevail over the Hawkeyes, 66-52.
Hard as it may to believe after Iowa’s 10-minute field goal drought to start the game, the Hawkeyes actually had a higher shooting percentage for the game than MSU did: 46.5% vs. 39.1%. The three Spartan point guards struggled to score in this game, making just 9 of 28 [...]
Posted in big ten, game preview, links, michigan state basketball on February 23, 2008 | No Comments »
Friday Night Links
Kelvin Sampson is done at IU–with $750,000 to help ease his pain. Speculation for the IU job turns to Bennett, Miller, Brownell (?), Few, and Matta. Don’t see the Matta thing happening; he’s got everything he needs to build a consistent top-10 program in Columbus.
Mike Kebler can shoot the rock, reportedly.
A [...]
Posted in michigan state basketball, stats analysis on February 21, 2008 | 7 Comments »
Following last night’s win, MSU now stands at 7-0 at home in conference play vs. just 2-4 on the road. That’s a 4.5 game difference in home and away performance. The next biggest spread in home-vs.-away records is Ohio State’s at just 2.5 games (5-1 at home; 3-4 on the road).
And this is [...]
