Michigan basketball needs to be better in two big areas to beat MSU
Michigan will likely be favored at home against a Michigan State team that was struggling mightily before beating Purdue at home Sunday. The Wolverines are almost in a must-win situation as it pertains to the NCAA Tournament with three games left.
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They did plenty right against Illinois, especially offensively in a 93-85 loss Sunday. An area in which they failed, though, is one in which MSU excels.
“Ball screen defense,” associate head coach Phil Martelli, filling in for Juwan Howard, said. “We weren’t really a presence at all in the ball screen defense. Using our term, we had 11 blow-bys, which means they got to the front of the rim.”
Too often, he noted, there was nobody waiting for the guard at the rim. Big man Kofi Cockburn used his big frame to clear space, often creating a huge lane and an easy finish.
There were little plays, too, that could have made a difference, Martelli said. Yes, the Illini made several triples with a high degree of difficulty. At the same time, failure to box out on free throws, giving up baseline, etc. led to too many opportunities.
And opportunistic is how Michigan State operates under head coach Tom Izzo. Guard A.J. Hoggard has been “exceptional” operating in ball screens, Martelli noted, while Tyson Walker has been shooting the ball extremely well.
DeVante’ Jones (25 points vs. Illinois) took the blame for losing his man off the dribble, but he didn’t get much help against the Illini.
“It’s terrific that D.J. would say that, but it was a collective effort,” Martelli said. “It wasn’t that the guards didn’t do for Hunter, because there were times where Hunter didn’t do for the guards. And I didn’t do for them with regard to an exactness.
“That’s the word I like to use. Let’s be exact. The call could be wrong and defeated, but it has to be exact. So, we can’t have a guy and a half guy in the right spot and then another guy who is, ‘wait a minute …’ and that’s what I saw. I saw us being uncertain, and then the Illinois players taking advantage of that.”
Michigan State will take advantage, too, even if they aren’t as gifted offensively.
At the same time, Martelli said, the worry with MSU starts long before half court defense is set. Michigan found out the hard way in the first meeting between the two schools, an easy MSU win in East Lansing.
“It’s going to start in transition,” Martelli said. “They had 28 fast break points last game. We’re going to go through all 14 of those baskets today, because it was across the board. It was a guy standing in the backcourt and stabbing [and more]. And against Michigan State, we have to first get back. We have to build a wall and not allow the ball into the cracks, so now they spread it around.
… “They’re [also] the No. 1 three-point shooting team in the Big Ten, offense and defense. This is one of those games where the line is going to be a really, really big deal. But going back to what we learned from the first game, we’d better get our backsides back and build a wall so we can get settled in.”
If their feet are moving, MSU will get downhill on them in a hurry, he noted. If not, he said, they’ll be “just fine,” assuming they have their legs. This will be the second emotional game in three days for the Wolverines, who played to the point of exhaustion against the Illini.
This could be a game in which Martelli has to rely on his bench a bit more, too, with another game coming up Thursday.
How the younger Wolverines respond — and how the defense plays overall — could go a long way toward determining their fate.
