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View Full Version : MBB: (5) Michigan State 67, Oakland 63



FerryFor50
12-14-2013, 05:16 PM
This is the same Oakland team that UNC, UCLA and Indiana beat by around 30pts.

MSU up only 2 at the start of the 2nd half...

Duvall
12-14-2013, 05:31 PM
This is the same Oakland team that UNC, UCLA and Indiana beat by around 30pts.

MSU up only 2 at the start of the 2nd half...

Doesn't that happen every year? It seems like those teams play pretty often, and MSU usually struggles.

-jk
12-14-2013, 05:36 PM
Doesn't that happen every year? It seems like those teams play pretty often, and MSU usually struggles.

I think Izzo's teams routinely struggle early. But they get it together later. Nice pattern in the Grand Scheme of College Hoops. And it certainly beats the mirror scheme (which we've fallen into a couple times, alas).

-jk

FerryFor50
12-14-2013, 05:40 PM
Doesn't that happen every year? It seems like those teams play pretty often, and MSU usually struggles.

Yea but wouldn't it be soooo embarrassing if MSU only beat Oakland by 1??? :p

Cameron
12-14-2013, 06:26 PM
Michigan State was without Tom Izzo today. He doesn't start coaching until March. He does this every year.

Despite that fact, and even with Gary Harris out today and the injuries they've played through the whole year, the Spartans haven't looked impressive to me at all this season. They needed 39.5 minutes to beat Ivy League basement dweller Columbia at home (game was tied with under a minute left), trailed Portland at home in the second half and then today's barn burner with 2-9 Oakland, who just got stomped by an average Indiana team last week. As we all know, historically Michigan State has gotten off to slow starts in the early non-conference schedule under Izzo. Whether it's due to tougher scheduling some years, injuries, younger teams learning to play Izzo's physical and demanding brand of basketball, or whatever, Michigan State never seems to play its best basketball until late in the year.

However, this is a very experienced team with Payne, Appling, Dawson, Trice and even a seasoned sophomore in Garry Harris as the star of the show. So youth is not the issue. Yes, they'll still probably end up going to the Elite Eight, or further, but it's nowhere near as formidable a team as once was thought IMO.

weezie
12-15-2013, 09:03 AM
Michigan State was without Tom Izzo today. He doesn't start coaching until March. He does this every year.


Izzo was quoted last time MSU was in Rose Bowl saying he would walk to Pasadena to see the game.

A few weeks ago he was asked about Pasadena this year and he responded that he might have to ask NASA for help getting dropped into the stadium as he's now a bit older.

Brother-of-weezie, MSU grad, works for NASA (DC), sends Izzo a light-hearted email, as a lark, offering to help with arrangements. Two hours later, Izzo calls Brother-of-weezie at work, leaves voice mail thanking him for the offer and thanking him for being a loyal MSU fan.

One of the greatest voice mails in the history of mankind, eh?! :D

Indoor66
12-15-2013, 09:40 AM
Izzo was quoted last time MSU was in Rose Bowl saying he would walk to Pasadena to see the game.

A few weeks ago he was asked about Pasadena this year and he responded that he might have to ask NASA for help getting dropped into the stadium as he's now a bit older.

Brother-of-weezie, MSU grad, works for NASA (DC), sends Izzo a light-hearted email, as a lark, offering to help with arrangements. Two hours later, Izzo calls Brother-of-weezie at work, leaves voice mail thanking him for the offer and thanking him for being a loyal MSU fan.

One of the greatest voice mails in the history of mankind, eh?! :D

Sounds a little spacey to me. :cool:

DBFAN
12-15-2013, 01:04 PM
I think we are missing something. Michigan the team we were up by 16-18 pts and beat by 10 (only because they scored so much in Garbage time) almost took out the Number 1 team in the land. It's my opinion that after the Vermont game, K had decided that enough was enough with his teams D. I truly believe that the only thing Duke was focusing on in NY was their D. I gather that, by the way nobody seemed to be real upset about losing to AZ. Not that they wanted to lose, but they had some defensive goals set for those games, and whatever the goals were, they had accomplished them.

Fast forward to Michigan, and it seemed like there was a little more balance between the offense and D. About this tie of year a lot of teams who have potential start to make that push. Obviously because the coaches have let them do a certain amount of learning on their own, but now we are getting close to Conference play, and the Coaches take over

It will be hard to tell with a team like Gardner Webb, but I expect this team will be start to make big strides in a short amount of time. That is just how progress tends to be, something gets figured out and then they take off

So what I am really getting at is this, beating Michigan like we did, shouldn't be overlooked, AZ fans are wishing they had

The game within the Game is much more important

Cameron
12-16-2013, 01:57 AM
Izzo was quoted last time MSU was in Rose Bowl saying he would walk to Pasadena to see the game.

A few weeks ago he was asked about Pasadena this year and he responded that he might have to ask NASA for help getting dropped into the stadium as he's now a bit older.

Brother-of-weezie, MSU grad, works for NASA (DC), sends Izzo a light-hearted email, as a lark, offering to help with arrangements. Two hours later, Izzo calls Brother-of-weezie at work, leaves voice mail thanking him for the offer and thanking him for being a loyal MSU fan.

One of the greatest voice mails in the history of mankind, eh?! :D

Very cool story.

Even with Duke's overall resounding success against Izzo under K and MSU's somewhat sluggish start to the season, I'd still feel much better about advancing through the NCAA Tournament this year if you could somehow use your brother's credentials to arrange for Izzo actually to be placed on that spaceship and then see that he is sent somewhere else, like into orbit.

While rarely featuring future NBA stars, Izzo's teams are always so well prepared and willing to lay it all on the line both mentally and physically. Duke's battles against Michigan State often make for grueling games. The meeting in the 2005 Austin Regional was a backyard fight, one that, no matter how many times we have beaten the Spartans since, always pops into my mind to remind me of how dangerous and difficult to overcome an Izzo-coached team is.