Michigan State 81, Illinois 72 Postgame

Status
Not open for further replies.
#226      
Yep. We needed more 3-pt shooting tonight and our most accurate shooter passed up multiple opportunities to put points on the board. Asking DMW for 6-7 pts a game is not unreasonable. Need more from him than literally nothing on offense.
Agreed, no margin for error for AD,KC, & TF if we are getting zero offense from DMW & AM.
Just like the 2005-06 team, no BigT champaionship or final four without consistent play of Augustine and Powell.
 
#227      
Far too many are forgetting that preseason, MSU was ranked as one of the top teams in the nation. That Langford was a McD's All American out of high school, that MSU has some superb basketball talent but, had not had the guard play that Izzo demands. They are finally learning to get shooters the ball in rhythm. Also, you had to expect Izzo to have some plans for Kofi on the inside. And yes, what the officials allowed and didn't allow, definitely impacted the game. There were several potential future NBA talents, from MSU, on the floor last night! Too many are acting like MSU should have been a walk in the park. That team was ranked at or near the top for a reason. Izzo seems to have finally found a couple of guards that see the floor and make good and timely passes. They hacked and roughhoused the Illini in a manner that officials will not allow during the NCAAs. The world remains!
 
#228      
I know I'll get disagreement but at this point in time Curbelo is a liability .
Curbelo was a liability in the first half but at the end of the game he was bringing great energy. That was a bright spot that the rest of the team can build on.
 
#229      
Far too many are forgetting that preseason, MSU was ranked as one of the top teams in the nation. That Langford was a McD's All American out of high school, that MSU has some superb basketball talent but, had not had the guard play that Izzo demands. They are finally learning to get shooters the ball in rhythm. Also, you had to expect Izzo to have some plans for Kofi on the inside. And yes, what the officials allowed and didn't allow, definitely impacted the game. There were several potential future NBA talents, from MSU, on the floor last night! Too many are acting like MSU should have been a walk in the park. That team was ranked at or near the top for a reason. Izzo seems to have finally found a couple of guards that see the floor and make good and timely passes. They hacked and roughhoused the Illini in a manner that officials will not allow during the NCAAs. The world remains!
You're right. I had a bad feeling after watching Izzo's pre-game presser. MSU is a lot better than their record. However... they do not beat us without us chipping right in and helping them. Free throws and missed layups and we win even with horrible rebounding and them shooting lights out.
 
#230      

Illiniaaron

Geneseo, IL
Not that it matters but where did they have Underwood set up for his postgame press conference-looked like they set up a folding chair and a small table just outside of the custodians’ restroom or something.
 
#231      

Dbell1981

Decatur, IL
Cmon guys, the sky is falling after every loss is comical. Everyone calling the team inconsistent. They just won 7 straight in the toughest conference in the country of maybe all time. We only need 6 straight to win a National Title. This team is more than capable and there are several on here that would nitpick an undefeated season if we had one. Get a grip loyalty
 
#232      

skyIdub

Winged Warrior
Posted a similar conclusion on the game thread and you are spot on IMHO, Henson71. Teams that advance to the FF or CG have to be consistent and dependable.


We literally just lost to a team with a history of early inconsistent play, only to march through March when it counts.
 
#234      
We shoot 80% from the FT line and it's a tie game. I don't think it's actually anymore complicated than that. Problem is it looks like a pretty proven strategy against us to just play very physical and put us on the line.
 
#235      
True.

But it's no longer early. This is the time you want to be hitting your stride.
Get what you are saying. We have not been consistent throughout our games here lately, but it is all about getting the W's. We've won 7/8 in this time we should be hitting our stride. I feel pretty good.

I'll also add that I liked how BU pointed out that if we were to win out this season, it would have been like 21 straight W's. Wasn't happening.
 
#236      
We literally just lost to a team with a history of early inconsistent play, only to march through March when it counts.
Exactly. I saw at least one poster call MSU a bad team, and I don’t think that is true. Yes, their record isn’t great but I wouldn’t call that team bad. And it is common to see people write “if we play our best game we can beat anyone.” While this is true, it is true of a lot of teams. And in every game your opponent is trying to develop a plan and play so you don’t play your best game. MSU did that well last night, and the Illini weren’t able to counter punch. Make no mistake there is plenty of blame to fall upon the Illini for last night. But they can come back from this. Will they? I think so. And I plan to be watching the next game and the game after that and the game after . . .
 
#237      

skyIdub

Winged Warrior
True.

But it's no longer early. This is the time you want to be hitting your stride.

Well...duh. That's not what I was responding to. See the bolded quote for context.

Edit: perhaps I should have said "program" instead of "team"...it's MSU history
 
#238      
The faster we play, the less we think. When we play fast we play loose. When we get inside our own heads we tend to implode. We've gutted it out a few times this year, which is NICE. They have shown some resiliency (credit where credit is due), but tonight it was too little too late.
Just like when we played fast the entire game at Minnesota. Right?
 
#239      
I’d love to see you tell Ayo that he should have just been tougher on that flagrant foul.
I see you like to miss the point. Listen to Trent's postgame. He says that MSU's physicality bothered them tonight and that there was a toughness issue.
 
Last edited:
#240      

Calillini

Now appearing in Tampa
To me it’s about getting more of those calls in the 1st half when they were hacking us early. Their bigs get in early foul trouble like they should’ve it’s a completely different game
Absolutely, if Kofi had gone to the FT line 22 MORE times, he would have been 15 for 33 and we would have won by 1 point. /s
 
Last edited:
#241      
Reminded me of my CYC coaching career. Horrible FT shooting, missed layups, terrible refs, and having just one kid on the team who can ball.
 
#242      
I think that’s a little unfair. We just got done winning 7 in a row. That’s pretty consistent. Now we have one bad game and we are back to being inconsistent??
We were inconsistent in that 7 game win streak....Nebraska, Northwestern were definitely games where we played just well enough to barely win....Minnesota...that was a different story......that's my reason for the inconsistent statement
 
#244      
I see you like to miss the point. Listen to Trent's postgame. He says that MSU's physicality bothered them tonight and that there was a toughness issue.
You are right about the physical nature of the game...sometimes it's the little things that define that...bumping the cutters, crashing the boards, giving a hard foul..we didn't respond well. When you get fouled, you have to make them pay. We didn't and they kept fouling. Giorgi disappears in games like these, Trent is smallish, Miller, Curbelo, Hawkins not ready for this type of play, and our most physical player is Damonte, an undersized "3". We can play uptempo well, but a half court, physical game is not our forte.
 
#245      
This one stung no doubt, but actually feel better about this one than some of our other losses and too close, play-down-to-the competition wins. In those situations we tend to lack focus and intensity. Last night we
1.Only had 11 turnovers (granted 8 were in the first half but shows we at least refocused at half. 11 is probably below our season average)

2. Outrebounded MSU despite their really physical play, including grabbing more offensive rebounds.

3. Free throws, yes we missed 15 but 12 of those were from Ayo/Kofi, and 3 of Ayo’s 4 were when he was still dazed. MSU clearly got in Kofi’s head, which he has to be better at controlling. But, a lot of his misses looked good. They were just a little short/long or rimmed out. I feel like when he’s not focused there’s a lot of bad misses off the side of the rim and there were very few of those last night. The rest of the team was 12-15.

All 3 cut against us being flat or unfocused and may explain why Brad wasn’t overly upset. As Brad and many others have said, it just wasn’t our night.

Also, Curbello seemed to get his mojo back last night and Trent remained on a heater. If those guys continue to play at that level and we get just average games from Ayo and Kofi we will be a really tough out.
3 things I didn’t like:
1. The hesitancy in shooting open 3’s. DaMonte is the primary culprit here but there were others too. As well as we shoot the 3 I feel like we should be taking more, especially when we are open.

2. Not the reason we lost, but the refs had a few missed calls at really inopportune times that killed several of our rallies. Ayo gets raked across the arm, jump ball. Giorgi wrangles a tie up with Hauser, foul. Ball pops into the air and Ayo jumps to deflect it, foul on Ayo. Trent brushes Watts well after the shot is gone and Watts flops, foul on Trent. And the missed out of bounds call off the MSU player.

3. Probably most egregious was not calling the flagrant on Kofi in the first half. That knock on the head was well after the whistle and nothing more than a cheap shot. Our guys have been called for a lot less. IMO, that no call led directly to the flagrant 2 on Ayo.
I don’t mind physical play but it felt like the old Bulls Piston series out there. Missed calls happen, but refs did a really poor job of controlling the cheap shots. We are lucky Ayo or anyone else didn’t get hurt. No place for any of that and I definitely lost some respect for Izzo as, in my opinion, all of that was by design.

Finally, we probably could have overcome all of it if MSU had shot closer to their season average. We’ve played better defense, but they hit an awful lot of tough, contested floaters/fall aways/etc with very timely three point shooting. Does anyone know if that “luck” metric takes into account shooting percentage in excess of expectation based on shots taken? If so I can see why we are ranked near the bottom. With the exception of Wisconsin, it always feels like teams hit more than their fair share of tough shots against us.

Apologies for the long post, I just had several observations I wanted to share that don’t have me as discouraged as the Maryland or Mizzou losses or even the Nebraska and Northwestern wins. May cost us a seed line but I actually don’t think this loss is the worst thing that could happen to them.

If we play this way against Nebraska way more layups and free throws will go down and we win by 30. Trick is to come out as focused and with as much energy as we did last night.
 
Last edited:
#247      
Michigan state moved to a NET ranking of 75 after this win which BARELY qualifies this as a Q1 loss. Hopefully it stays that way
 
#248      
I can't believe all the "MSU is a good team" takes. When exactly did they become a good team? They weren't good a month ago when they put up just 37 on Rutgers. And they weren't good 10 days before they trounced us, when they got beat by 30 at home to Iowa. The Big 10 is on track to send a record number of teams to the tournament, and MSU probably isn't one of them. Their record before last night reads as mediocre at best, so maybe everything clicked just in time to beat us. Or maybe we played poorly and beat ourselves. I guess we will know after we see what MSU does going forward, but I think the explanation that the dormant giant was awakened just in time to beat us is the less likely possibility.
 
Last edited:
#249      
After a solid 12 hours of cool down time and having watched MSU's last 2 games, Sparty is pretty good and this loss won't look "that bad" on March 7th. We have struggled in physical clunky games this year, but we have shown the ability to win them (IU comes to mind).

This is a good film to watch today for coachable moments:
Kofi passing out of double and triple teams. The way the man can keep his pivot foot is amazing, now look up and find a teammate on the perimeter.
DMFW not being locked in on D & passing up some really good looks.
Showing Belo how good he is when playing under control and taking what the defense gives him (also don't hesitate to shoot).
Highlighting our lack of hustle to box out and giving up second and third chances OR our over aggression going for blocks and getting out of rebounding position.

Everything bad from last night is fixable. Yes, we struggle against long, physical, athletic teams, but who doesn't? Thursday, Senior/Ayo Day, will hopefully be a great palate cleanser.
 
#250      
And that was the turdburger of a game I was expecting after a near perfect game in Minnesota.
Obviously, I don’t expect them to win every game, but what I would like to see is some consistency.
That will be the issue come tournament time.
Can they win four or five games in a row on the road against good teams???

The thing that is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
FRUSTRATING ARE THE MISSED FREE THROWS.

Jesus H. It’s essentially a fundamental of the game that every single player on that team has done from the moment the picked up a ball.
To watch players shoot well below there average at the fee throw line just makes me want to rip the tv off the wall!!!
They are going to need to pretty much run the table to get a one seed at this point.
It’s hard to say which Illinois team will show up. The one that lit Minnesota up on it home court or the one that can’t make a free throw, a layup, or a dunk under the basket??? Who knows?
But I do know this. If it is a close game and it comes down to free throws. We are as good as done. These kids can’t make them. And that is the biggest Achilles heal to this team. Foul Kofi. And it’s as good as a guarantee that he will turn two points into one 56% of the time.
I am hoping the team that showed up in Minnesota shows up from here on out. It can’t just be Ayo and Kofi. Trent has been playing well. The remaining cast needs to take a deep breath and bare down. It’s been a long time since Illinois has been this good. An even longer time since the blue bloods were this bad. And next is a big unknown. So, I hope these guys get it together because it will all be over in 6 weeks. The season is now!!!!
Go Illini!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.