Usually when I am responsible for writing the recap articles, I take notes and draft the article as the game is going on. Tonight, at halftime, I was typing out paragraphs about all the good things I was seeing.
You are not going to get to read those paragraphs; I deleted them about midway through the second half.
While the Michigan State Spartans had a dominant first half, even if they were giving up a lot of open looks from 3, all that goodwill was wiped away with how the second half went. The Toledo Rockets, a MAC team that came into tonight’s game with a 5-5 record, benefitted from some incredibly careless play from MSU after coming back out in the 2nd half. A game that MSU led by 30 at the break ended up being a 23-point victory, and the only reason it was even that large of a win was because the Walton twins hit twin 3-pointers in the final minute of the game.
Outside of those two buckets from the deep bench, Michigan State only scored 28 points in the second half and had been outscored in the half by 11 at that point. Maybe I am channeling Tom Izzo too much right now, but I cannot be pleased with what I saw in this game. The announcer, Tom Crean, had a quote during the game that was something along the lines of MSU being guilty of playing according to the current score of the game instead of playing to the plan. Had they played the way they were supposed, and how they showed in the first half that they are capable, then my prediction of a 30-point win (a margin we led by at halftime) would have come true.
As we approach the new year and go into conference play full time, this team needs to learn to stay locked in for a whole 40 minutes. At one point in the 2nd half, MSU had 6 turnovers in 9 possessions, with several of those being caused by our sloppiness. And we had stretches of game when the proverbial lid seemed like it was on our basket.
So, no full recap article. Certainly no “3 Likes & 3 Dislikes” because I don’t think I could narrow it down to 3 things I didn’t like, and I have mostly forgotten all the good from the 1st half. Any list I would do after this game would have been all about the lackadaisical and undisciplined play we all saw after the half.
If I had to give one Like, it would be that TV capture of Tom Izzo palming the basketball on the sideline. I can’t even say that he can do that because his paws are big enough; it could have been that he was so angry that he was able to crush the ball enough that he could press his fingers into it.
MSU needs to learn in the next couple of games how to maintain their style of play and their effectiveness. No reason that Toledo should have gotten as close as they did at times of the 2nd. We have three days until the next game. Let’s see if Tom Izzo gets them playing a full 40 on Saturday.
