Tom Izzo: Michigan State basketball's youngsters struggling against physical, veteran play
EAST LANSING – Michigan State will have six days off to digest what happened in the past week.
A blowout at Ohio State. A second narrow escape against Rutgers. A humbling home loss to Michigan.
The common thread: The fourth-ranked Spartans got physically dominated in all three games.
“We ran into two teams that are pretty good and one team that plays hard,” MSU coach Tom Izzo said after Saturday’s 82-72 loss to the Wolverines. “We’ve had to become more physical. That’s where our youth sometimes gets us.”
(LSJ and Free Press sportswriters discuss the Spartans' 82-72 loss to the Wolverines. Story continues after the video.)
The self-perceived lack of toughness is something both Izzo and his players have been lamenting and searching for since the Buckeyes ended a 14-game win streak on Jan. 7 by pushing, bumping and hammering the Spartans.
The Scarlet Knights played equally as aggressive. And Michigan, while not a physical team, showed “grit” according to coach John Beilein by getting to the free-throw line 35 times, grabbing 11 offensive boards and coming within one rebound of the Spartans’ total.
“This is just gonna motivate us, like all the other losses,” MSU freshman Jaren Jackson Jr. said Saturday. “We just gotta play harder. Obviously this hurts a lot more than most, but you gotta have defeat to have successful times.”
All three of those teams have important veteran presences. Ohio State has Big Ten leading scorer Keita Bates-Diop among the four junior or senior starters. Rutgers played five upperclassmen, including its top players in Corey Sanders and Deshawn Freeman. Michigan, though having a relatively young roster overall, relies on juniors Moritz Wagner and Charles Matthews, as well as senior Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman and fifth-year senior Duncan Robinson.
MSU starts four sophomores and a freshman. All but Nick Ward played 27-or-more minutes against the Wolverines. The Spartans’ upperclassmen – seniors Tum Tum Nairn and Gavin Schilling, and juniors Matt McQuaid and Kenny Goins – are limited-minute role players.
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“I think you have to remember Michigan State really has a whole bunch of sophomores,” Beilein said. “Don’t forget, they’re not Purdue, who we played the other day with all these seniors. Those guys (for MSU) are showing up in a growth spurt as well.”
The Spartans, now 16-3 and 4-2 in Big Ten play following two losses in three games, likely will tumble in the rankings when they are released Monday. Izzo cautioned fans and media not to “jump off the bandwagon” because he does not feel any differently about his team after a rough week.
“I don’t want to listen to anybody because I know my team,” Izzo said. “They get caught, even myself, so I can understand how the players are. … They’ve lost a couple of games. Big deal.”
Izzo said the gap between Saturday’s loss and Friday’s game against Indiana (7 p.m./Fox Sports 1), which will close a three-game homestand, is neither a positive or a negative right now after an emotional loss. Getting back on the court to erase the taste would help, but so could more practice time to work on cutting down the turnovers and defending high ball screens.
“I think personally, in one day, you could solve some of the problems we had,” Izzo said. “You’re gritting your teeth and doing something – you’re not going to gain that in two days. That’s a decision you have to make, and we didn’t do a good job of that.
“We have to coach it better, we have to play it better. And we will.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari. Download our Spartans Xtra app for free on Apple and Android devices!