MBB: Duke vs. Sparty, NCAA Sweet 16 (Fri 2145 EDT, CBS) Pre/In-Game Thread

[hurleyfor3]

Bring it on.

[bbosbbos]

Brother, you are so quick

[Durham Thunder]

K owns Izzo as of late. But if we play like we did against the 'Jays, say goodnight.

[pfrduke]

So we have ~ a week to figure out how to deal with Adreian Payne. We'll need it. He's going to be a problem.

That being said, their guards are suspect and we can beat them by a lot on the perimeter. If we hold our own inside, the game should be ours. If Nix and Payne start playing volleyball on the boards, though, it could be a long night.

[bbosbbos]

I almost felt into sleep during the game. Very similar feeling to that of 2010, boring boring. But you know I love this feeling.

[OldPhiKap]

Brutal front end of a weekend, with two running teams in the wings.

Best gotta beat the best. Bring on the Spartans!

[sporthenry]

So we have ~ a week to figure out how to deal with Adreian Payne. We'll need it. He's going to be a problem.

That being said, their guards are suspect and we can beat them by a lot on the perimeter. If we hold our own inside, the game should be ours. If Nix and Payne start playing volleyball on the boards, though, it could be a long night.

Nix is also a load down there. He looks like a guy who could shut down Mason. Those matchups could come down to who gets into foul trouble first. Only problem is that Kelly doesn't draw a ton of fouls.

Agree with their guards. Appling has thrown multiple games away at the end so if they keep it close, Duke should probably have the edge from that standpoint.

[Bluedog]

Time is 9:45 pm eastern. Obviously, they'd give us the late game like usual. Louisville-Oregon tipoff at 7:15. Wichita St-LaSalle is at 10:17, but at least that's taking place in LA.

http://www.ncaa.com/interactive-brac...ketball-men/d1

[Chris Randolph]

West and East play Thursday/Saturday. Midwest/South on Friday/Sunday. Duke at 9:45 eastern

[SCMatt33]

Duke will have to bring it in this game in a much different way than they did in Philly. The biggest thing Duke will have to do is find a way to negate their advantage on the boards. Creighton basically abandoned the offensive glass, which helped us a lot. Michigan State will not. I can't see any way that Duke wins the rebound battle in this game (in terms of OR% and DR%) so we'll have to 1) limit the advantage as much as possible and 2) force turnovers. Michigan State has be prone to turning the ball over this year, and Duke can take advantage with the ball pressure.

Duke's also going to have to shoot jump shots better. Duke missed a lot of jump shots this weekend, and with the increased level of competition that won't fly. We can't hope for Michigan State to go 2 for 19. Along the same lines, Duke will need to get to the free throw line and shoot well. I'm sure most people didn't like the refs tonight, but I'd love to see those guys in Indy. They were consistently tight the entire game, which I think would be in Duke favor against an extremely physical Michigan State team. If Duke can turn the game into a skills competition over a Power Battle, I like our chances.

[luburch]

Living in B1G country I've seen a lot of MSU. Appling often plays out of control, but Gary Harris is for real. He may be the best freshman in the country. I expect Sheed to be matched up with him and that should be a great matchup. As mentioned above if Duke can shut down Payne and limit Harris they should win this game.

[hurleyfor3]

TBS just showed a partial bracket with the Dallas games on TBS. Which means we're on CBS.

[arydolphin]

Full Sweet 16 TV times here: http://www.cbssports.com/collegebask...r-the-sweet-16

Duke on CBS in the late game on Friday night, Nantz and Kellogg on the call.

[NashvilleDevil]

K owns Izzo as of late. But if we play like we did against the 'Jays, say goodnight.

Duke played amazing defense tonight. If they duplicate that against Michigan St then they will be playing in the Elite Eight.

[Mike Corey]

izzo-K in March. College basketball fans must relish this.

MSU is very good but very flawed this season. Its size and physicality will be on display.

Time for bed. Go Duke, beat M*chigan State.

[Native]

izzo-K in March. College basketball fans must relish this.

MSU is very good but very flawed this season. Its size and physicality will be on display.

Time for bed. Go Duke, beat M*chigan State.

This is the test. We've said all season that rebounding is an Achilles heel of ours.

All will be revealed on Friday.

[Billy Dat]

Living in B1G country I've seen a lot of MSU. Appling often plays out of control, but Gary Harris is for real. He may be the best freshman in the country. I expect Sheed to be matched up with him and that should be a great matchup. As mentioned above if Duke can shut down Payne and limit Harris they should win this game.

COSIGN on Gary Harris. That kid is a big problem to deal with and is a projected lottery pick if he decides to bolt for the NBA. I think he's the best player on their team.

[NashvilleDevil]

Don't know if this was mentioned but Appling apparently did something to his shoulder in Sparty's win over Memphis. I'm sure he plays since they have an extra day to recover but will be interesting to see what Sparty does if he's limited or out.

[ice-9]

I don't think I'm a negative nancy -- I was fairly upbeat about our Creighton game (see http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/...376#post640376 for my pre-game post) and actually bet $100 on Duke, but the game against Michigan State is going to be an all-out, heavyweight slug-fest.

This is a good team. #7 on KenPom to our #5. #9 on AP to our #6. This is two equally rated teams and their confidence is sky high after demolishing Valpo and Memphis.

Michigan State goes 7 to 8 players deep:

- Adreian Payne is a McDermott light...he's the 6'10 stretch 4 who can shoot (56% on twos, 41% on threes and 84% on free throws!) and go inside.

- Think Echenique is big? The Michigan State center, Derrick Nix has 10 pounds on the guy! Along with soft hands and good feet. Unlike Creighton however, there's more to the team than just these two.

- Gary Harris is the Spartan equivalent of our Rasheed, an athletic, dynamic, freshman scoring guard who shoots 42% on threes. According to DraftExpress, Harris is Michigan State's best NBA prospect.

- They are led by Keith Appling, who IMO can be both a strength and a weakness: he's streaky and can make bad decisions but he's also their leading scorer and floor leader. He suffered a shoulder sprain from the Memphis game apparently but will play next weekend.

- The supporting cast includes Dawson, Valentine and Trice, Appling's backup. He's a good long range shooter at 39%; Dawson rebounds well; Valentine is the classic glue guy.

Michigan State is a battle tested, experienced team. Nix is a senior, Payne and Appling are juniors. Their scoring is distributed evenly: five score above 9 points a game, so it's going to be unlikely all five have bad shooting games.

Their strength is in their defense. Memphis isn't the greatest offensive team, but Michigan State absolutely shut them down. They move very well on D and swarm the opposing team's key players without giving up much on the role players -- we're going to have to be sharp in how we move the ball. They crash the boards too as most Izzo teams do, and except at PG, they're also relatively tall. KenPom rates their defense as 6th best in the country.

OK, so how do we play them?

Appling is the key player IMO in this entire equation. How well is he going to play? If he's on, we're going to have our hands full. If he makes bad decisions, we will win. So we have to put a lot of pressure on him -- force him into uncomfortable situations, dare him to play one-on-one (vs. setting up his more capable teammates), generate turnovers.

Nix is big and strong, but he's also slow and relatively low stamina -- he only plays 28 minutes a game despite being a match-up problem for most teams. And he won't be able to get back in time if the game is fast-paced, meaning more opportunities for Mason to run and catch alley hoops. Even though Nix outweighs Mason, Mason has the height advantage so hopefully the two will at worse cancel each other out in a half-court game.

Ryan, Josh and Amile has to do as good of a job on Payne as they did McDermott...single coverage I think they will.

Harris facing off against Rasheed is also going to be interesting. Harris is their most efficient perimeter scorer, but Rasheed is an excellent defender and not so bad himself on offense.

Seth will have plenty of rest and ready to score buckets, but with Michigan State's defense, he's not going to be able to win this by himself.

And so we circle back to the PG position -- Cook and Thornton vs. Appling and Trice. This is the key match-up that we have to win.

Both teams are going to play great defense and struggle to score. We are evenly matched at most positions, but Michigan State will probably out-rebound us. We just have to force enough turnovers and run whenever we can to compensate...and hope we have a decent shooting night on top of all that.

It's going to be a coin flip, but I think Duke wins a close one with an edge on offense. We have to play with fire and passion to beat a team like Michigan State.

[Struggling golfer]

Sometimes the obvious has to said. Unless Ryan Kelly picks up his game, Duke will be leaving Indianapolis on Saturday .

His Miami game was an aberration and after that game our expectations were sky high, but I guess his long layoff, and not being in the best of basketball shape has taken a toll.