Jay Bilas still believes in Michigan State after uneven start
Michigan State fell to 9-8 with a 71-68 loss to Illinois Thursday, but ESPN’s Jay Bilas is still a believer in Tom Izzo and the Spartans.
The Green and White continue Big Ten play Sunday with a home date against Rutgers, but it’s truly been a rollercoaster season for MSU. Izzo’s crew is losers of two in a row at the moment.
Bilas likes the veteran squad however, and thinks that’s the key to getting things back on track for a stretch run this season.,
“I still believe in Michigan State,” Bilas said Saturday on College GameDay. “They’re an older team. They were a top five team in the preseason, but they haven’t played well frankly. They’re getting better production out of AJ Hoggard. He’s starting to really well, Tyson Walker has been great all year long …
“Their transition has improved, but they’ve got to get better consistency out of their big guys. Their numbers are still pretty decent but a 1-4 start in the Big Ten, they got to turn things around quickly. I still think they can. And I think Tom Izzo will.”
The experience factor is one thing, but Bilas harkened back to a warning from the preseason.
“And I go back to the experience factor but I did have a coach at the start of the year, a very prominent coach say they are not buying into the Michigan State hype to start the season,” Bilas said. “They lost Joey Houser, haven’t replaced them. I think there’s some truth there. But I still think they have enough to not only be an NCAA tournament team, but to play well when they get there.”
Just earlier this week, Izzo shared similar sentiments as Bilas. Basically he said Michigan State isn’t quite there yet.
“Disappointed in how we guarded and the number of turnovers we had in about a six minute span before the (end of the) first half,” Izzo said after a loss to Northwestern. “We never rebounded from that. We were up four and all of a sudden were down 15 or 14 and it happened quickly. Give them some credit, they made shots. We didn’t make any shots, and that’s college basketball right now. But we did not defend or rebound like we should or could and what I’m expecting out of this team.
“At the same time, we outrebounded them, and at the same time, our offensive output – which I didn’t think was great – statistically, it was very good. We missed some critical free throws at critical times. Two front ends of a one-and-one and a two-shotter all within that stretch when the score was within four points. All of sudden they’re scoring and we’re not. And that’s the way the game went.”