Tom Izzo: A Numerical Summary

14 seasons as head coach

14 .500-or-better Big Ten regular season finishes

12 NCAA Tournament appearances

12 first-team all-Big Ten player selections

10 20-win seasons

8 Sweet Sixteens

6 Elite Eights

5 Final Fours

5 Big Ten regular season championships

5 former assistants currently coaching Division 1 teams

4 Big Ten player-of-the-year selections

3 30-win seasons

2 Big Ten Tournament championships

2 national championship game appearances

1 national championship

.738 NCAA Tournament winning percentage (31-11)

.711 all-time winning percentage (336-137)

.690 Big Ten regular season winning percentage (160-72)

Zero 4-year players without a Final Four appearance

Nothing but class

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The Top Ten Performances of the 2008-09 Season

I’ve decided not to post any commentary of a forward-looking nature until we get over to the new site. For now, let’s revel in the season that has been.

One of the things that made this season so special was the number of guys who stepped up at various times during the season to get the team to 31 wins, despite multiple injuries disrupting the regular lineup during the season.  For the season, nine different players led the team in scoring at least once, seven different players led the team in rebounding at least once, and five different players led the team in assists at least once (including ties in all three cases).

To look back at some of those contributions, I’ve put together a list of the top ten individual performances over the course of the season.  I’ve split the list into five regular season performances and five postseason performances.

Regular Season Performances

5. Raymar Morgan vs. Oklahoma State
29 points on 9-11 FG shooting and 11-13 FT shooting, 5 rebounds
Few MSU fans got to see this game, after MSU dropped the opener in the Old Spice Classic, but Morgan put up some huge numbers against a team that would eventually make the NCAA Tournament.

4. Delvon Roe at Michigan
14 points on 5-7 FG shooting, 10 rebounds
From the game recap: “Delvon Roe finally put together the kind of game we’ve been hoping for against a smaller lineup: 14 points and 10 rebounds in 28 minutes.  He took advantage of the mismatch against Zach Novak and the other guards that were matched up with him inside–and made 4 of 6 free throws to boot.”

3. Kalin Lucas at Illinois
18 points on 7-14 FG shooting, 4 assists, 1 turnovers
You could put Lucas on this list as many times as you wanted, but we’ll go with his extremely efficient performance in MSU’s best win of the Big Ten season.  That performance included a layup Lucas created out of nothing to put MSU ahead 60-58 with 5 minutes go after Illinois had rallied from a 7-point second-half deficit.

2. Durrell Summers at Ohio State
26 points on 6-9 three-point shooting, 4 rebounds
From the game recap: “The tale of the first half was Durrell Summers single-handedly keeping the team afloat, scoring 16 of the team’s 26 points as the rest of the team struggled with turnovers and 3-point shooting against the Ohio State 3-2 zone.”

1. Goran Suton vs. Wisconsin
16 points on 6-6 FT shooting, 10 rebounds, 2 assists
From the game recap: “Suton was a warrior.  After not starting the game (apparently to reward Tom Herzog–he of the graceful reverse layup–for his hard work in practice), Suton posted 16 points and 10 rebounds–most of them in the second half.  He pulled down a couple huge offensive rebounds, as did Raymar Morgan (5 rebounds in 17 minutes), during the comeback from 12 down.  Give Suton credit for keeping his composure after the airballed 3-pointer (his third 3-point miss of the game) and leading the team to victory.”

Honorable Mention: Travis Walton’s back-to-back 16-point performances at the Old Spice Classic.  Marquise Gray’s back-to-back 12-point performances in the same setting.  Suton’s 18-point performance against Texas in just his second game back from the knee injury.  Morgan’s 22-point/13-rebound performance against Northwestern to help MSU open the conference season with two road wins.  Chris Allen’s 17-point performance (on 4-7 three-point shooting) in the same game, against the 1-3-1 zone.  Lucas’ 21-point performance against Purdue in the regular season finale.  And just for Mrs. SW: Austin Thornton’s 9-point performance (on 3-3 three-point shooting) in the opener against Idaho.

Postseason Performances

5. Goran Suton vs. North Carolina
17 points on 3-4 three-point shooting, 11 rebounds, 2 blocks
While the outcome of the game was a disappointment, let’s not forget Suton went toe to toe with one of the most celebrated post players in the history of college basketball and matched him almost play for play.

4. Kalin Lucas vs. Kansas
18 points on 7-7 FT shooting, 7 assists, 4 steals
From the game recap: “Kalin Lucas could not be any more clutch.”  I think this play will forever pop into my head whenever I hear the phrase “and one.”

3. Raymar Morgan vs. UConn
18 points on 7-13 FG shooting, 9 rebounds, 5 steals
From the game recap: “Raymar Morgan played the best game of his career . . . against the very epitome of the kind of tall, athletic opponent he normally struggles against.  I thought his confidence would melt away after he had his first shot of the game blocked by Thabeet, but MSU retained the ball (on a team rebound) and Morgan came right back and knocked down a shot.  From there, his confidence swelled.”

2. Goran Suton vs. Louisville
19 points on 3-5 three-point shooting, 10 rebounds, 4 assists
From the game recap: “Tom Izzo’s game plan in the half-court offense was to put Suton in the middle of the top two defenders in Louisville’s 2-3 zone and use Suton’s shooting/passing skills to break down the defense.  Suton responded beautifully, almost single-handedly keeping MSU even with the Cardinals through the first 20 minutes.  On defense, he completely shut down Samardo Samuels.  On his first three touches of the ball in the post, Samuels traveled, missed a shot, and got called for an offensive foul.  Samuels never bounced back and went scoreless for the game.”

1. Travis Walton vs. USC
18 points on 8-13 FG shooting, 2 assists, 2 steals
From the game recap: “On the first possession of the game–when USC came out employing the box and one–Walton got the ball about 18 feet from the basket in an open spot in the zone.  Usually, you’d expect him to hesitate at least briefly before shooting the ball so early in the game.  But, instead, he immediately squared up and knocked down the shot.  From their, his confidence ballooned; eventually he knocked down a couple shots where he had to adjust the arc of the shot due to an onrushing USC defender.”

Honorable Mention: Chris Allen’s 17-point performance against Minnesota in the conference tournament.  Korie Lucious’ 16-point performance to try to mount a comeback against Ohio State in the conference tournament.  Draymond Green’s 16-point performance against Robert Morris.  Suton’s 20-point/9-rebound performance against Kansas.  Lucas’ 21-point/5-assist performance against UConn.

Who would have thought that Travis Walton, of all players, would end up making having arguably the key offensive performance of the entire season?  And we’re not even talking about his defense.  The games in which he locked down A.J. Abrams, Manny Harris, and A.J. Price could have easily been included on the lists above.

Coffee Talk: What do all of you think?  Which performance merits top billing?  What great individual performances did I miss?

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The Turnovers Strike Back

76 possessions

21 turnovers

Turnover percentage: 27.6%

I don’t think this North Carolina team was going to be beaten under any circumstances tonight, but I sure would have liked to see the MSU team that played with such poise and precision in the two previous game give the Tar Heels a run for their money.

A disappointing finale to an otherwise superlative season.

More tomorrow.

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Pop Quiz

Question: What was the defensive play that preceded The Dunk?

(While you’re thinking about it: I’ve decided that Summers’ throwdown is definitely worth of being labeled “The Dunk.”  The combination of the spectacularness of the play and the stage on which it was made make it the greatest dunk in the history of the program.  The Magic-to-Kelser dunk off the full-court pass in the 1979 championship game is iconic, but had no bearing on the outcome of the game.  The Cleaves-to-Peterson play against Iowa State was probably more key in terms of determing the game outcome, but I think of that more as an alley-oop than as a straight-up dunk.)

Answer: A defensive sequence in which 6’5″ (if that) Draymond Green was guarding 7’3″ Hasheem Thabeet.  UConn got the ball to Thabeet in the post.  But Green’s superb defensive positioning prevented Thabeet from getting into position to score.  Thabeet was forced to throw an awkward pass out to the perimeter, which was deflected by Raymar Morgan.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Other post-DVR-review thoughts:

1. Apparently sitting so far from the action impaired by ability to write an accurate game recap.  Corrections/clarifications: The “team rebound” MSU got that Morgan scored off early in the game was Thabeet blocking Morgan’s first shot out of bounds.  Travis Walton recorded 8, not 9, assists (still, that’s equal to the total number of assists for the entire UConn team).  Suton’s backdoor pass to Summers came with 2 and a half minutes left, not in the final minute.  Gray’s dunk came off a Raymar Morgan pass.  Idong Ibok did more than just absorb fouls; he also had a couple very nice rebounds.
2. Man, did we push the ball on offense.  I don’t think I’ve seen us that aggressive in transition since the 2005 Torbert/Brown/Ager/Anderson team.
3. Just before Korie Lucious went on his 9-point scoring burst late in the first half, MSU trailed by 2 points, despite the fact they were only 2-10 from 3-point range at that point.  That’s perhaps the hallmark of this team relative to last year’s team: Even when they’re not hitting on all cylinders, they find ways to stay in the game and put themselves in position to win the game in the second half.
4. I’ve read some criticism of Clark Kellogg in the last couple days–with some going so far as to say they miss Billy Packer.  I’m not quite sure where’s that’s coming from.  Kellogg provides solid analytical commentary, with just a touch of humor (fouling out equals a “Dairy Queen”).  I think he’s held back a little bit in terms of the depth of the analysis.  But that makes sense for someone calling games with large TV audiences, which include a lot of viewers who aren’t die-hard basketball fans.  The main thing is that he doesn’t superimpose his own strongly-held views on to the game.  (Unlike some other major network talking heads, for example, he pointed out early and often that MSU would do well to push the ball in transition in last night’s game.)  Plus, he gets props for revelaing that Draymond Green’s nickname is “Dancing Bear.”

Alright, on to North Carolina.  Less than 24 hours to go.

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A dunk (and game) for the ages

I guess we can run a little, eh, Digger?

Raymar Morgan: 18 points, 9 rebounds, and 5 assists.  Who’s the bozo that called him a “role player”?

Game recap after I get some sleep.

For now, more of The Dunk:

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To Ibok or not to Ibok?

Thursday Night Links

• Final Four: The Ultimate Viewers’ Guide
  Mr. Gasaway says to watch out for Kemba Walker.
• The Walton method
  Travis Walton is watching tape right now.
• Learning process: Thabeet tries to keep blocks in bounds
  Thabeet says he and Stanley Robinson will rotate on Suton.
• Herzog doing his best Thabeet impression
  Nice to have a seven-footer on the scout team.
• MSU’s Morgan must get his head in the game
  Who woulda thunk we could get to the Final Four with Raymar Morgan scoring 7 points in 3 games?
• Izzo Gets a Compliment From Ann Arbor
  Lloyd Carr is rooting for us.
• Cheering Fans, Thrilling NCAA Tournament Disgust BCS Officials
  The Onion.

What to do with Mr. Ibok

For a fifth-year scholarship player, Idong Ibok has logged very few minutes this year.  158 minutes, to be exact.  But he’s played an effective role in those minutes, serving as a designated defender against opponents with true centers of the seven-foot (or near-seven-foot) variety.  His last seven outings of 5 minutes or more have come against this group of four players: Cole Aldrich (twice), Ralph Sampson (thrice), Mike Tisdale, and JuJuan Johnson.

Upon casual analysis, then, one might expect Mr. Ibok to log 10-15 minutes or so against the 7’3″ Hasmeen Thabeet on Saturday.  I wonder, though, whether that would be playing right into UConn’s hands.  Consider:

• Thabeet is, by most accounts, not a terribly polished post player.  The most important thing, then, is to keep him away from the basket so he’s not in position for easy baskets off passes or rebounds.  Goran Suton, Delvon Roe, or even Draymond Green might be better suited to that task.  Ibok tends to be most effective against players who are going to post up and try to shoot over their defenders.
• On the other end of the court, Thabeet would be able to rotate off Ibok to block the shots of MSU players driving the lane with little danger of Ibok scoring off a pass.  If Thabeet is forced to guard Suton, that clearly creates an advantage for MSU (but may require going with a small lineup).  And, while neiter Delvon Roe and Draymond Green have shown great outside shooting ability to date, they are both quite capable of converting shots 5-8 feet from the basket and/or making good passes when the defense is scrambling to rotate.

What do you guys think?  Do we throw our seven-footer at theirs?  Or concede the height differential and focus on creating a mismatch of our own?

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An impressive list

SpartanDan did the follow-up work.  Coaches who have made the Final Four with (at least) three different completely distinct rosters of active players:

– John Wooden (UCLA ‘62, ‘67, ‘71, ‘75)
– Dean Smith (UNC ‘67, ‘72, ‘77, ‘81, ‘91, ‘95)
– Mike Krzyzewski* (Duke ‘86, ‘90, ‘94, ‘99, ‘04)
– Denny Crum (Louisville ‘72, ‘80, ‘86)
– Adolph Rupp (Kentucky ‘42, ‘48, ‘58, ‘66)
– Roy Williams* (Kansas ‘91, ‘02, UNC ‘05, ‘09)
– Bob Knight (Indiana ‘73, ‘81, ‘87, ‘92)
– Lute Olson (Iowa ‘80, Arizona ‘88, ‘94, ‘01)
– Rick Pitino* (Providence ‘87, Kentucky ‘93, ‘97, Louisville ‘05)
– Jack Gardner (Kansas St. ‘48, Utah ‘61, ‘66)
– Jerry Tarkanian (UNLV ‘77, ‘87, ‘91)
– Forddy Anderson (Bradley ‘50, ‘54, MSU ‘57)
– Jim Boeheim* (Syracuse ‘87, ‘96, ‘03)
– Eddie Sutton (Arkansas ‘78, Oklahoma St. ‘95, ‘04)
– Jim Calhoun* (UConn ‘99, ‘04, ‘09)
– Tom Izzo* (MSU ‘99, ‘05, ‘09)

*Active

That’s a who’s who of college basketball coaches.  Just 16 of them.  Ever. And we’ve got one.

Let us perish the thought that he will ever depart the shadows of our ivy covered halls.

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Kansas-Related Thoughts of a Preliminary and Contradictory Nature

1.  We beat them earlier this year.  Handily.

So that’s good.

2. They’re a young team.  Of the eight Jayhawks who average more than 10 minutes per game, three are freshman and three are sophomores.  So it’s likely they’ve improved more than the average team has over the last 10 weeks.

So that’s bad.

3. They finished the regular season on a bad note, losing two of their final three games (including the conference tournament opener).  They allowed all three of their final conference opponents to post offensive efficiency numbers above 108.

So that’s good.

4. But they’ve rebounded from the late-season funk to be pretty dominant in their first two NCAA Tournament games.  They beat North Dakota State and Dayton by a combined 27 points.  Sherron Collins scored a total of 57 points and 10 assists in the two games.  Cole Aldrich put up 36 points and 33 rebounds (!) in the two contests.

So that’s bad.

I guess my initial impressions are a wash.

I’ll compose a more detailed game preview in the next couple days.

P.S. Some subset of the SW clan (including me, of course) will be heading down to Indy again.  Anyone else going?  Looks like plenty of tickets are still available.

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First Impressions

You guys have already covered a lot of this, but the draw looks about as good as we could have hoped for:

• All of our six potential games would be played in the Midwest (Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Detroit).
• Nothing on paper gives us any reason to be particularly afraid of Boston College and USC in the second round.  Boston College is even more reliant on offensive rebounding to score than we are.  USC is fairly well-rounded, but they’re not very deep and they have even bigger turnover issues than we do.
• We’ve beaten Kansas, so at least we know how it’s done.  (They’re a pretty young team, though, so they’ve had more room to improve than we’ve had since we met in January.)
• Louisville’s hot (10-game winning streak), but is the least imposing of the #1 seeds in terms of pure talent. (Not that they’re a fluke as a #1 seed: they rank #2 in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency.)

Of course, things always look pretty doable on paper.

If you want to worry about something right now, worry about the fact that Robert Morris shoots 39.7% on 3-pointers.

Mr. Rexrode says we play at 9:50 Friday night, so we’ve got all week to chat about the bracket outlook.

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State of the Blog Address: A-Change-is-a-Comin' Edition

To date, this basketball season has been a blogging dream.  On the court, our team has fulfilled, if not exceeded, preseason expectations by running away with the Big Ten Championship–despite a series of injuries and illnesses along the way.  On the blog, I managed to make some pretty good predictions before the season began (more on that later), and readership has continued to grow, exceeding 1,000 page views per day the last few weeks.

But I can’t keep it up.

As rewarding as this experience has been–it’s forced me to learn a lot more than I previously knew about college basketball, and it’s introduced me to a lot of really smart MSU fans–I can no longer maintain the daily posting pace needed to keep a good sports blog going.  Pesky things like a job and a family (both of which are expanding this year) keep getting in the way.

So, effective at the end of MSU’s NCAA Tournament run, the Spartans Weblog will cease operations.

That’s the bad news.

Here’s the good news: Something even better is going to replace it.  All the details haven’t been finalized.  But a team of some of brightest minds in the MSU blogosphere (or at least the brightest minds willing to talk to me–most of them are people you already know) will be joining forces to bring you a bigger, better MSU blog experience.

Upside for me:

• I’ll still have an outlet to share insights (or, absent insights, Excel-generated scatterplots) when they occur to me.
• I won’t have to try to do that every day of the week.

Upside for all of us:

• You’ll get multiple perspectives on MSU athletics, not just mine.
• There will be a lot more football talk.
• We’ll all still have a gathering place to analyze, discuss, celebrate, and commiserate about events in Spartan land.

Thanks to everyone who’s helped make this website what it is today.  If not for you, I wouldn’t even have thought of putting together the new blogging team.  As much as I’m going to miss running this blog solo, I think the new site is going to be a blast.  Stay tuned for all the details.

Until then, though, I have every intention of manning my post (or, rather, laptop) until the final buzzer goes off on the 2008-09 Michigan State basketball season.

Now, back to how smart I am (That’s what we were talking about, right?)

We’ve touched on this in the last couple days, but let’s examine it in excruciating detail: Did I hit the nail on the head with my preseason predictions or what?

Prediction #1:

(Note: Predictions are not presented in chronological order.)

• There are six nonconference games that should be comfortable wins (Idaho/IPFW/Bradley/Alcorn St/Citadel/Oakland).  That leaves six games against BCS-level competition (three in the Old Spice Classic).  With Delvon Roe slowly getting up to full speed and the team adjusting to a more up-tempo style, I think 9-3 would be a reasonable outcome.  If they made the Old Spice Classic final, lost to UNC, and split with Texas/Kansas, they’d hit that mark.
• In conference play, this team should be good enough to hold court against the entire league for a 9-0 home record.  Road games against Purdue and Ohio State lean toward losses.  Thankfully, we don’t play in Madison this season.  Toss in one more road loss against the middle of the league (Minnesota/Illinois/Penn State/Michigan) and you get a conference record of 15-3.

I was within one game on the nonconference mark.  We actually beat my 9-3 prediction by a game (assisted by the easier Old Spice Classic schedule the opening-round loss to Maryland created).  And I hit the conference mark exactly.

Had I known Goran Suton and Raymar Morgan would both miss substantial playing time, I doubt I would have been so optimistic in my prognostications.  But the mark of this team from the beginning was depth, and that depth paid dividends when injury/illness struck.

Looking ahead, I had us going a combined 5-2 in postseason play.  Let’s hope we get 3 of those wins in the BTT or 4 of them in the Big Dance to earn ourselves another banner, eh?

Prediction #2:

So I must force myself to make at least one bold prediction about the upcoming season.  I worry they’ll pull my sports blogger union card if I don’t.  Here it is:

Kalin Lucas will be the Big Ten Player of the Year.

The popular preseason picks for this honor are Hummel and Morgan.  And you can make a reasonable argument for both.  My inclination is to think that there’s less room for either of those guys to improve on their performances from last year (at least statistically) than there is for Lucas, though.

. . .

Lucas, meanwhile, should see substantial increases in his numbers.  MSU’s commitment to push the ball on offense, along with Lucas’ new role as the clear #1 point guard, should boost his assists/game number from last year’s 3.8.  There’s room for his shooting percentages to rise from the .445/.364/.768 numbers he posted last season, and he’ll have even more oppotunities to score in the half-court offense as the go-to guy with the shot clock running down.  Both those factors should boost his scoring from 10.3 points/game.

Bammo!  As I pointed out last night, Lucas wasn’t even named to the preseason all-conference team.  So you can’t say this was a UNC-will-win-the-national-title kind of a prediction.  I’m just that smart.  (And let’s say we ignore the part about how B.J. Mullens could be a contender for POTY, OK?)

Prediction#3:

The major outstanding question is what happens when the team is forced to play half-court offense.  Last year, the team struggled to score at times when things bogged down, leading to inconsistent offensive performance in conference play.

The good news is that we have several players who should be able to create scoring opportunities near the basket: Lucas and Summers off the drive and Morgan, Roe, and Suton in the low-post.  To keep those options open, though, MSU will need to show it can consistently make perimeter shots, particularly from 3-point range.  Otherwise, defenses will be able to collapse on players in the paint and it will be tough to create good looks at the basket.

. . .

My intuition is that if Lucas and Summers both shoot 37% or better from 3-point range this season, while each taking 2-3 three-point shots per game, MSU will have a Big Ten Championship/Final Four-caliber offense.

Well, here you go:

• Kalin Lucas: 39.5% 3pt%.
• Durrell Summers: 38.5% 3pt%

And:

(Man, do I love that photo.)

Now the path to that banner wasn’t quite as simple as I laid it out in that preseason post.  Statistically, our offense was driven almost entirely by getting to the free throw line and rebounding the ball.  And we slumped pretty badly shooting the ball from beyond the arc down the stretch; over the first seven games of the second half of the conference schedule, the team made less than 30% of their 3-point attempts in all but one game.

Still, Lucas and Summers both hit some big 3-point shots at various points during the season.  And, over the full season, their numbers are quite good (better, in fact, than the one guy we thought would be our most reliable long-range shooters).  Summers, in particular, has been a big enough threat from 3-point range that you’ve seen defenses adjusting to make sure he doesn’t get good looks from beyond the arc in the last several games.

So I’m definitely chalking that one up as a success, too.  Three for three, baby!  (Maybe I should retire completely from the blogging business, as my odds of ever repeating this feat are roughly 1,000-1.)

P.S. There’s still time to enter the The Second Annual and World’s Only (As Far As We Know) Big Ten Tournament Bracket Contest.  I admire everyone’s fidelity to MSU, given the fact that picking the same team as 90% of the other entries reduces your odds of winning.  But I have to say–having been as optimistic as any Spartan observer out there over the course of the season–I now have a strange, ominous feeling about our fate in the conference tournament (visions of Northwestern staking their claim to an NCAA tournament slot at our expense).  Hopefully, that’s just my subconscious overcompensating.

(More rational discussion of BTT chances: On the one hand, Izzo might not want to burn the team out by pushing the players full-bore over the three-day weekend, given that we took home the regular season conference title.  On the other hand, playing 2-3 more games with the full lineup at 100% is probably a good thing in terms of establishing an offensive rhythm going into the Big Dance.  My bet: He pushes the team hard, but keeps the starters’ minutes below 30 per game.)

P.P.S. One of the reasons I think this is a good time to step away from this site and move to something more specifically MSU-focused is the emergence of the Big Ten Geeks.  (The impetus for starting this blog, after all, was the departure of the Big Ten Wonk.)  Be sure to check out their excellent defense of the Big Ten’s  credentials for the Big Dance (I love disagreements among stats-prone writers) and their stats-based All-Big Ten team (superb analysis of Lucas’ adapation over the course of the season).

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