Defense, transition offense get MSU back on track

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With his team coming off a rough week that included two losses in three games, Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo pleaded this week for the Spartans to get back to defending at a high level and running at every opportunity after inexplicably going away from had been working.

They responded Friday night against Indiana, snapping the Hoosiers’ three-game winning streak with an 85-57 victory at Breslin Center. And to the first-year IU coach who could only watch as his team shoot 33.9 percent from the field and frequently gave up quick buckets, it was clear what Izzo had pushed on his team all week.

“I think there are multiple examples in this game of, missed shot led to a basket or foul or 3-point play because they are causing pressure in their transition,” Archie Miller said after the game. “I think that’s how they played all year. Maybe they haven’t got going the past few games with clearly the emphasis that they promoted tonight. I think you can see what they can do with that.

“That was the biggest thing of the game was not being able to sustain our transition defense, but you know, when you can’t score it’s hard.”

Officially, Michigan State finished with eight fastbreak points Friday night, but that doesn’t mean the transition game was ineffective. The Spartans used the break to set the pace of the game and avoid getting bogged down in the half court while creating more shot opportunities for everyone. Nine players attempted at least two field goals, and six took five or more shots.

Miles Bridges led all scorers with 22 points on 9-for-13 shooting, and if there’s anybody suited for playing a transition game, it’s the high-flying sophomore. However, after Izzo said earlier this week that a better fast break would benefit Nick Ward as much as anyone, he turned out to be right Friday. Ward scored 18 points while going 7-for-9 from the field and also grabbing 13 rebounds. And while he did a much better job handling double teams — even throwing a well-executed skip pass to the opposite wing for a Cassius Winston 3-pointer — he also found himself with a number of easier opportunities after getting the ball on the secondary break and beating his man one-on-one.

“It just opened up everything for me,” Ward said. “They couldn’t just sit int he double team. … It’s hard on defense, especially with a dominant big in the middle. You need help, and you can’t help if everybody is scrambling.”

Ward indirectly referring to himself as a “dominant big” shows just how confident he is in his ability to beat any single defender. And that confidence has been earned in the eyes of Miller, whose team couldn’t overcome — among other things — a 38-18 deficit in points in the paint, largely because of the way MSU ran.

“Their running game is the paint,” Miller said. “They attack the paint off the advance pass. They have the best rim-runner in college basketball, Nick Ward, and they forced the action and the transition game. They handled the post trap, I thought, really well. They cut right out of them and burned us, so we weren’t really able to control the transition game and then you add rebounding to the mix; It was a disaster.”

One of Izzo’s concerns entering the game was Indiana’s ability to crash the offensive glass, as the Hoosiers ranked fourth in the Big Ten in offensive rebounding percentage. Despite Indiana’s 39 missed shots, though, the Spartans only gave up eight offensive rebounds that led to only six second-chance points. Meanwhile, MSU missed 12 fewer shots than IU but grabbed four more offensive rebounds and converted them into 17 second-chance points. Overall, Michigan state outrebounded Indiana 45-27.

Ultimately, Michigan State’s bounce-back game offensively was the result of a much better effort defensively and on the boards.

“If you guard somebody and they miss shots, you rebound and run it better than you do out of a made shot and I think that was the difference in our running game,” Izzo said. “We ran a couple times after made baskets, but we got the ball going, we got rebounds, we got movement. There was energy. We screwed up some defensive assignments tonight. That’s why I’m not really as pleased as I should be. But when you play with energy, you make up for it so if somebody screws up, somebody else makes up for it. That’s kind of what I was most excited about.”

Friday’s effort came after a long week of practice. With six days between games, Izzo said the Spartans went through “a week of hell” after losing to Ohio State and Michigan and going to overtime against Rutgers.

“It was just two, two and a half hours worth of physical practices,” said Cassius Winston, who had eight assists to just one turnover against Indiana. “Moving up and down playing against each other, sprinting the floor, all types of things like that just trying to get back to us.”

For one night at least, Michigan State did just that, beating Indiana by imposing its will on both ends and simply playing hard.

“Coach has been preaching that all week,” said Matt McQuaid, who finished with 11 points in a productive 21 minutes. “Just playing hard and getting back to what we do, getting our grit back and team defense, too. That’s what we pride ourselves on. Felt like we got that back tonight.”

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