Keys to tonight's game

[CappyNU]

I'll start by saying I have very low expectations for this game, but here's a few areas to look at tonight:

1) MSU is #1 in the country in assist/FG ratio. We are 8th worst in that category. They like to run on offense as well. Can our defense stop them from moving the ball around quickly and finding easy open shots?

2) Height. Olah will have 3-4 inches on whichever big is guarding him tonight. There will be lineups tonight where MSU's 2nd tallest player on the court is 6'6". Can we take advantage of this?

3) 3-pointers. MSU's trio of Valentine, Forbes and Harris take 14 3's per game and shoot 41.8% in conference play. Our woes at home have been well documented. Can we prevent this stat from being one-sided?

 

[ricko6543211]

I'll start by saying I have very low expectations for this game, but here's a few areas to look at tonight:

1) MSU is #1 in the country in assist/FG ratio. We are 8th worst in that category. They like to run on offense as well. Can our defense stop them from moving the ball around quickly and finding easy open shots?

2) Height. Olah will have 3-4 inches on whichever big is guarding him tonight. There will be lineups tonight where MSU's 2nd tallest player on the court is 6'6". Can we take advantage of this?

3) 3-pointers. MSU's trio of Valentine, Forbes and Harris take 14 3's per game and shoot 41.8% in conference play. Our woes at home have been well documented. Can we prevent this stat from being one-sided?

All good points. I agree Olah and our other bigs should be able to score a few buckets down low tonight, and we'll need them to. And I'm with you that relative 3 point shooting may well decide the winner.

One other note though- as with Wisconsin, I actually think this is a team that we match up reasonably with defensively. The players that really seem to kill us are primarily quick, nimble guards that can penetrate our zone and move the ball faster than our matchup zone D can react, and to a lesser extent mobile big men that can pull our bigs away from the basket and into space where they are uncomfortable. Valentine is their best player and their offense is centered around his playmaking ability. I expect CC will take the same approach as with Wisconsin / Hayes and have Sanjay follow Valentine around in a sort of Box and 1 while the rest of the D does our amoeba thing. Their guards are great shooters but aren't as dangerous off the dribble as guys like Yogi on and Trimble on Md, or even the OSU guards that gave us trouble. They are also more spot up shooters- whereas the teams that have faster moving offenses seem to give our zone more trouble as we are too slow with our switches. I also don't think that their guards have the length to really frustrate BMac on defense like some others in the B1G do.

So obviously this team is better than Wisconsin, and I'm not predicting a victory per se, but I think we have a decent shot. Their best playmaker is a wing that we can match up with, and Costello is good but I don't think he's quite so good that he creates a mismatch with Olah. Their guards also don't seem like the type that are best suited to taking advantage of our defensive weaknesses at guard.

Hopefully I'm not ruing these words in a few hours...

 

[ricko6543211]

All good points. I agree Olah and our other bigs should be able to score a few buckets down low tonight, and we'll need them to. And I'm with you that relative 3 point shooting may well decide the winner.

One other note though- as with Wisconsin, I actually think this is a team that we match up reasonably with defensively. The players that really seem to kill us are primarily quick, nimble guards that can penetrate our zone and move the ball faster than our matchup zone D can react, and to a lesser extent mobile big men that can pull our bigs away from the basket and into space where they are uncomfortable. Valentine is their best player and their offense is centered around his playmaking ability. I expect CC will take the same approach as with Wisconsin / Hayes and have Sanjay follow Valentine around in a sort of Box and 1 while the rest of the D does our amoeba thing. Their guards are great shooters but aren't as dangerous off the dribble as guys like Yogi on and Trimble on Md, or even the OSU guards that gave us trouble. They are also more spot up shooters- whereas the teams that have faster moving offenses seem to give our zone more trouble as we are too slow with our switches. I also don't think that their guards have the length to really frustrate BMac on defense like some others in the B1G do.

So obviously this team is better than Wisconsin, and I'm not predicting a victory per se, but I think we have a decent shot. Their best playmaker is a wing that we can match up with, and Costello is good but I don't think he's quite so good that he creates a mismatch with Olah. Their guards also don't seem like the type that are best suited to taking advantage of our defensive weaknesses at guard.

Hopefully I'm not ruing these words in a few hours...

One corollary to this and re Cappy's point 1... we NEED to limit their transition opportunities. All the matchup benefits in the world only help us if we force them to run halfcourt offense. So our guards (and others) will need to get back on D.

 

[CappyNU]

I'll start by saying I have very low expectations for this game, but here's a few areas to look at tonight:

1) MSU is #1 in the country in assist/FG ratio. We are 8th worst in that category. They like to run on offense as well. Can our defense stop them from moving the ball around quickly and finding easy open shots?

2) Height. Olah will have 3-4 inches on whichever big is guarding him tonight. There will be lineups tonight where MSU's 2nd tallest player on the court is 6'6". Can we take advantage of this?

3) 3-pointers. MSU's trio of Valentine, Forbes and Harris take 14 3's per game and shoot 41.8% in conference play. Our woes at home have been well documented. Can we prevent this stat from being one-sided?

1. Fail on stopping the assists, but we did mostly keep them from fast break play.
2. Major fail, 0-6 shooting from Olah.
3. LOL no.

And that's how you lose by 31.