MADISON, Wis. — It wasn’t Tom Izzo’s assessment of his team’s performance Friday night that was depressing. It was his candid analysis of his team in general after the Spartans’ 92-71 loss at Wisconsin that was discouraging.
“I told you, we’re not a great team,” Izzo said. “We’re as good as we are when we’re playing well together, and things are moving our way. … Tonight, we got beaten by a team I think is a little better than us, but we got beaten by a team that played a lot better than us.
“Our margin for error is not high.”
Oof.
He is not wrong about his team’s limitations, though the idea of Wisconsin actually being a better team is a recent development and not one that shows itself yet in the advanced metrics. This is a Badgers squad that three weeks ago lost at home to USC, and three weeks before that was outclassed at home by Purdue, and was drilled by 30 points at Nebraska in December. The Badgers have been dangerous for a while and are increasingly consistent in their offensive potency — winning at Michigan last month and at Illinois this week and, three days later, blitzing the Spartans. They hit at least 15 3-pointers and scored more than 90 points in each of those wins, the 90 points something they’ve done six times in the last 10 games.
Meanwhile, MSU, which rose as high as No. 4 in Kenpom’s rankings on Jan. 24 after winning six straight games by double-digits — including by 29 points against that USC team that beat Wisconsin, and by 21 over an Indiana team that also beat Wisconsin, and by 17 and 16 points, respectively, on a trip out west to play Washington and Oregon, before obliterating Maryland, 91-48 — has now had four concerning performances in its last five games.
Losing at Wisconsin, in itself, isn’t a big deal. Falling to Michigan at home is understandable, if not predictable. Laying an egg at Minnesota isn’t great. Nor is needing a ferocious late comeback to win at Rutgers. But these sort of stretches of basketball have occurred before at MSU — like last year, when MSU lost three of four games in early February, and was only bailed out in the other game by Jase Richardson’s coming out party against Oregon. That team won the Big Ten by three games, albeit a Big Ten that wasn’t as strong at the top.
This year’s team didn’t start the season like a team with limitations. They riled up hopes with decisive wins over Kentucky, North Carolina and Iowa. When they did finally lose, by six at home to Duke, it took Jeremy Fears going 0-for-10 from the floor. For most of the season, MSU has had better point guard play than a year ago and better interior play, even if we’re talking about the same three players.
The Spartans (20-5 overall, 10-4 Big Ten) remain more equipped than last season to beat elite teams with size. And, in an NCAA tournament that’s about matchups, they are likely capable of beating anyone on a given day. They’ll just have to hope they get several “given days” in a row.
That’s unlikely. Because MSU does not profile as a contender. Advanced metrics are not everything, but we’ve got 30 years of Kenpom data at this point, and only one national champion has been outside the top 22 in offensive OR defensive efficiency. That was the Connecticut team in 2014 that knocked off the Spartans in the Elite Eight. UConn was 10th in defense and 39th in offense.
The Spartans this year are now No. 7 in defensive efficiency — good enough to win it all — but 45th in offensive efficiency. The next least-efficient offense to win the national title after UConn in 2014: UConn in 2011, which was 19th offensively, followed by 2003 Syracuse, which was 17th.
And for all of MSU’s trouble stopping Wisconsin on Friday night, it was the Spartans’ inability to go toe to toe with the Badgers offensively that killed any chance of a comeback.
“It’s plays on both sides,” MSU freshman Jordan Scott said. “Like, you can’t go on runs without getting stops. And we didn’t do that tonight. We (also) couldn’t trade baskets with them, because we weren’t scoring as efficiently as we could have been.”
Jordan Scott key to MSU shedding its offensive limitations
Scott is an important part of MSU being able to improve its offensive efficiency on the fly. The reason: He’s a somewhat recent and increasing interjection into MSU’s offense. He took a career-high 13 shots Friday, including going 3-for-8 from beyond the arc. That’s a promising development. The more Scott’s usage increases, the better for the Spartans. He, more than anyone else, has a chance grow into the offensive weapon the Spartans have lacked on the perimeter. They simply don’t have enough shooting they can count on. And they don’t have enough playmaking outside of Fears.
They’re a Jase Richardson away from being a true title contender. Or a John Blackwell, who had 24 points in 27 minutes for the Badgers on Friday, making 4 of 9 3s. He’s the Michigan product that Izzo loves, and laments not recruiting earlier, harder.
When people question whether Izzo can win a second national championship doing it his way, it’s shallow analysis. If Richardson didn’t blow up until this year and stuck around for his sophomore season, or if Izzo — who built his program 30 years ago by putting a fence around the state and getting the best high school talent — had properly evaluated Blackwell earlier, he’d probably have a team with the goods to win it all right now, doing it his way.
As it stands this season, while not impossible, being a factor on college basketball’s final weekend is beyond improbable, and would require MSU to become something more offensively than it is right now — which is an even tougher ask with the loss of Divine Ugochukwu to a foot injury. It’ll take Scott emerging, and Coen Carr looking as comfortable offensively regularly as he did Friday, a real bright spot on a tough night.
“It was definitely a mindset coming in, to be aggressive,” Carr said. “I feel like I need to give a lot more to my team than I have.”
RELATED: Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State’s 92-71 loss at Wisconsin
MSU will also need Jaxon Kohler to rediscover the shooting touch he had through 16 games, when he was shooting a Big Ten-best 53.3% (eighth-best nationally), making 32 of 60 attempts. He’s 10 of 43 from beyond the arc (23.3%) in the nine games since.
And the Spartans will need Fears to direct it all, playing 35-plus minutes a night, while scoring at a decent clip and avoiding nights like Friday, when he made just 3 of 12 shots from the floor. That’s tough for this MSU team to overcome.
MSU’s offense hasn’t been good enough since 2020
The harsh reality is that MSU’s offensive efficiency, relative to the top of college basketball, walked out the door with Cassius Winston in 2020. That was the last time the Spartans were a top-10 offense, and the last time they profiled as a national championship-caliber team, also boasting a top-13 defense that season. That team, which didn’t get to finish its season because of the pandemic, would have had a chance. Same for a year earlier, when MSU, which lost in the Final Four, had the fifth-best offense and ninth-best defense, per Kenpom, and the year before that, when Winston, sharing minutes, was the most efficient player in college basketball and MSU’s numbers reflected it — No. 13 offensively, 10 defensively — despite a team that never looked as smooth as its talent.
The only other years the Spartans have had top 25 offenses and defenses: Last season, when they were the No. 4 defense and No. 25 offense; 2013-14, No. 13 defense and 21 offense; 2011-12, with the No. 2 defense and 17 offense; and 1997-98 through 2000-01. Izzo’s three straight Final Four teams early in his career all had top 10 defenses and offenses, including the No. 4 defense and No. 2 offense in 2000, when they won the title, and No. 5 and 4, respectively, a year later.
Kenpom isn’t a perfect predictor. MSU probably could have won it all in 2015-16 — Denzel Valentine’s senior year — with the No. 26 defense and No. 2-rated offense. Same for 2008-09, if North Carolina hadn’t been in MSU’s way, when the Spartans were the No. 6 defense and No. 26 offense. The 2009-10 MSU team might have won the title, too, if not for Kalin Lucas’ Achilles injury. That team was only No. 33 defensively and the 27th most-efficient offense, but that was a weak Final Four, with national champion Duke’s lofty efficiency numbers not representative of the Blue Devils’ vulnerabilities. But, for the most part, this stuff matters, and 16 of the last 28 national champions have had offensive and defensive efficiency ratings both in the top 10. Teams like Michigan this year, who is No. 6 offensively and No. 1 defensively.
One caveat: Teams across the board are much more efficient offensively today than years ago, and even just a few years ago. MSU’s actual Kenpom efficiency rating this season is better than in 2020 and even slightly ahead of the 2000 MSU team. Those were different times. What matters most is how efficient you are relative to those around you.
This year’s MSU team, in terms of efficiency rankings, profiles somewhat similarly to the 2006-07 Spartans, who relied entirely on Drew Neitzel, and the 2023-24 Spartans, who had AJ Hoggard running the show. So Kenpom rankings don’t tell the whole story. This team is considerably better than both of those teams, its ceiling unquestionably higher. But its margin for error, as Izzo put it bluntly Friday, like those teams, is not that high.
Izzo will have to change that about his program if he’s going to win another national championship.
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Couch: Unless something changes, Michigan State basketball’s offensive limitations will be an insurmountable hurdle
Reporting by Graham Couch, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
