Losing to Michigan State re-opened the race for the conference’s top seeds. The Spartans are 11-5 ATS in their last 16 home games and 5-0 ATS in their last 5 games overall.
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The Michigan State Spartans average 20.0 three point attempts per game, and the Indiana Hoosiers attempt 23.0 per game.
Nothing underscored the ambiguity of the ongoing situation more than assistant coach Mike Garland’s pre-game recommendation to ramp up Marvin Clark Jr.’s playing time, based on little more than a hunch. London had 500 yards rushing and three touchdowns, along the way producing the longest run from scrimmage of the 2015 season (62 yards) for the 12-2 Spartans. “Indiana has a very good team”. Sure, Ferrell played hard and kept in front of Valentine better, but the size mismatch was too much.
Valentine had 30 points, 13 assists and only one turnover to help No. 8 Michigan State pull away to beat IN 88-69 Sunday at East Lansing, Mich.
Izzo said it was quite a feat to slow down Ferrell. “We lost Tuesday and felt we should’ve won that game”.
The Hoosiers are 10-3 this season and have outscored opponents by an aggregate 17 points during the first five minutes of the game, IN has been outscored by a total of three IN the first five minutes of the second half. “Those two guys played unbelievable”. “And yet Indiana’s a really good team. We did not defend the way we needed to, and we gave up way too many easy baskets”.
That is always subject to change, however.
· Cold shooting from Yogi continues: Tom Crean said following IU’s loss that he doesn’t buy into the notion that Yogi Ferrell is in a slump, but the numbers say otherwise. The non-conference and postseason games were eliminated from the sample because the opposition is different from year to year, as is the focus of the players. In the other they took 27 3-pointers to make nine.
The return of Tum-Tum Nairn ensures sturdier guard-defense come March. “I just had to breathe and calm myself down”.
“We’ve got a lot to play for yet”, Izzo said.
Clark has no illusions of how to go about doing that.
“Get better everyday”, Izzo said after MSU’s win Saturday.
“I’m not anxious about his shooting, and I’m not anxious about his minutes”. Then I dug into the 2014 and 2015 Big Ten seasons because 49 games should provide an accurate snapshot. He shot just 3-of-10 from the floor and, despite seven assists, looked visibly frustrated.
Ellis has been in what Izzo called “the ultimate doghouse for two years”, some of it his doing, and some as the victim of a numbers crunch. However, Izzo credits him with taking responsibility for trying to rectify his situation.
“You’ve got to put more pressure on him and make him uncomfortable”, Crean said. “But he wanted to go on it to get better”. “And, you hope that’s the way it’s supposed to be”. Everything we’ve asked him to improve on, he’s done. “Those basketball gods are amusing – they do that”.
MSU has not gotten a bye in the first round of the tournament three times since it was created in 1998, having to play on the first day in only 2006, 2007 and 2011.
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“I think you gotta be positive with him”, Bielfeldt said. “We did a solid job in the first half”.
