wiscansin and purdue wrap up

The loss to Purdue was surprising not in that MSU lost, but in how they lost. It was a mess.

Reffing was bad both ways. Lots of missed calls, inconsistency, and flat out wrong calls. That didn't lose or win the game.

MSU had 22 turnovers. That, alone, didn't lose the game.

The difference was shooting. Purdue couldn't miss and the Spartans couldn't make a layup. At one point Purdue had made something like 6 three's to MSU's 1. Despite that 15 point Boiler advantage from distance MSU was down only 11 at the time. That stat might lead one to believe that the Spartans were hitting everything inside. That was not the case. Going in to halftime Purdue's lead was less than 5 despite the fact that Suton, Roe, and Lucas had left about 6 easy layups on the floor. MSU just couldn't hit anything.

Lucas is getting to the rim more often -- at least in the second half -- in the last 4 games. However, his shooting percentage is terrible. Trrble. Even though I hate to see 2 of 11 and 3 of 14 performances I still like Lucas being more aggressive and getting to the rim. Nothing is worse than running your offense from 35 feet, getting over played, and not going by someone* that obviously can't stay in front of you**. Too often MSU guards creep further and further from the basket in the name of running the offense and forget basketball 101: the goal on offense is to score. If someone is overplaying you go by them. Forget the play. You don't get points for running the play. The refs don't stop the game to say "hey, you know what? good job forcing that pass just because that's what the play called for. 2 points green." The play is supposed to facilitate scoring. If you can skip to step 2, the actual scoring, you should do that.

Chris Allen. What more can I say? Plenty.

Watching the last game a few things were apparent. He isn't a genius.

Prime example : on the defensive end Allen watched a Purdue shot go off the rim and head out of bounds. Purdue touched it last, quite obviously. Gus Ganakas knew that Purdue touched it last. So, of course, Allen ran to the sideline to save the ball. On the defensive end. Gus Ganakas knows you don't save the ball under your own basket. Allen's failed attempt (redundant redundant) to save the ball looked strikingly similar to a bounce pass thrown to a spot (like a QB might attempt, throwing to a spot rather than a person). That spot happened to be the middle of the lane. The defensive paint. Where Purdue players were. Where you would gladly fight your mother to be with the ball on offense. That was the play that best describes Allen's game right now. Allen is no stranger to jumping in the air with no particular thought process or premiditation, but this time he decided to do it 1. with his back turned -- upping the difficulty factor from his normal routine, 2. on the defensive end, 3. to save the ball (that was off the other team), and 4. ended the perfect play by making a nearly perfect bounce*** pass into the paint. Purdue completed the perfect play by missing the layup****.

Also apparent: the game is too fast for Allen. There are two kinds of slow. This is really an extension of the above, but there is mentally too slow and physically too slow. Suton was (and sometimes is) physically too slow. Suton knows what to do most of the time but everything is exxagerated. If Suton is out of position, even by a little bit, there is no recovering. He is athletically slower. If Suton loses concentration or has an off game mentally the game is too fast for him.

Allen shows signs of being very athletic, but the game is too fast for him. The difference with Allen is that he has no idea where he is supposed to be. Worse? He appears to have little capacity to ever fully understand where he is supposed to be. At one point against Purdue Allen lost his man for about 5 seconds on defense. Considering the speed of the college game 5 seconds is an eternity. In 5 seconds a division one basketball player might think to himself, hey, maybe I should be guarding someone. I mean I'm not doing anything else right now. During my third scream induced myocadial infarction of that defensive series Allen had a thought somewhat similar to that, found his man setting up a tent and starting the camp fire in the lane, and sprang in to action. Luckily Purdue had no idea that the man was open either and waited for Allen to realize before taking advantage. At that point Allen ran at his man and executed a perfect form tackle. Honestly he could have played corner for JLS. Get burned, recover, hit your man no matter if he has the ball or not.

The good news? Maurice Ager. Plenty of people liked Ager and he is in the NBA. Ager didn't play defense consistently. Ager made the same mistakes as a senior that he made as a freshmen. Ager is the career leader in jumping in the air, with the ball, with no plan or reason for doing so. Ager wasn't a particularly talented ball handler. I have a feeling Allen has been watching old Ager game tape.

Wis can sin

This is where I get my obligatory Bo Ryan looks like Mo from the Simpsons reference in.

I have to give credit to Suton. Although he has had a quiet few weeks Suton is still leading the conference in rebounding and has improved an unbelievable amount on the defensive end. Gray is the bizarro Suton. Gray has gotten worse each season, which makes his 5th year quite unfortunate to watch. This week Suton earned even more love for saying "I don't like Wisconsin...they're dirty." I don't like Wisconsin either. And they are dirty. AND I like futons -- I mean they are possibly the most functional furniture ever invented. (bizarro world futon? The Papasan chair. Useless and uncomfortable. Designed, at best, for cats).

Wiscansin is probably my least favorite conference team in basketball. Wisconsin has been the ugliest team in basketball for the last 10+ years, both in terms of style of play and literally. They are ugly.

I have no logic behind my score this week, other than losing to Purdue providing motivation and Wiscansin being a crappy team from the top down. Bo Ryan did the Soulja Boy (to relate to recruits no doubt). Luckily it scored him 4 gumps that look like they fell out of the ugly tree, hitting every branch on the way down, who set illegal screens. His offense is set for the next 4 years.

MSU - 68

Wisky - 59

* By someone I mean anyone in the conference, if not country. Lucas is too fast to overplay. 8 times out of 10 Lucas will get by anyone who is guarding him. That will be followed by a missed layup 65% of the time.

** By you I mean Kalin Lucas, not you the reader. You [the reader] are not very good at basketball. Suton could stay in front of you [the reader] 100% of the time. Carrying a futon. With a suit on. Standing in croutons.

***The perfect bounce pass was of course the result of a failed attempt to throw the ball off someone's foot. Had the bounce pass been intended the pass would have sailed into the 4th row*****.

**** The Purdue player [engineer lite] was likely confused as to why anyone, even Gus Ganakas, would save the ball in that spot on the floor, in those circumstances, in that manner and promptly missed the layup.

***** Unless the 4th row was near the intended target, in which case his pass would have been air balled by 15 feet for no reason, in other words landing in the 18th row.