For those of us who didn’t watch the game, that is a good dose of clarity!
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At least they have the PG position solved.
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It’s not pretty, ORtg’s were…
Hoggard: 68
Watts: 76
Loyer: 23
You hate to see it
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Excellent wrap-up by Quinn in the Athletic. Izzo refused to go small all year when it would have helped him only to try it tonight at the worst possible moment.
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MSU’s biggest lead last night was 17. This was almost weirdly prescient.
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We’ll give you a half point for that one
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MSU does have some reinforcements coming next year in the from of Akins, Brooks and Christie. I’ll be enjoying this while it lasts for sure.
As fun as it is to see MSU struggle…I wanted to learn from this board what they think the issue is with MSUs pathetic offense. Losing Winston/Tillman was going to be a huge challenge no matter what…but it looks like they don’t even have a coherent plan on offense.
I have this hypothesis that the PG/C issues are merged with Izzos limited offensive acumen are the issue. Before Nick Ward got hurt Izzo wanted to feed the post and feast on OREB and fast break. We joked about their limited offense even when they had star players and were playing Tum Tum, Carter, Ward, etc…then Winston made it easy for them by running a ton of ball screens.
While it would be hard for any team with struggling PG/C to find a good plan, it just feels like they aren’t putting their players in good position to succeed.
Any thoughts about what type of system Izzo would want to run? What you would do with he pieces he had? How to best use his roster?
Those new recruits coming in are going to be good…but I am not sure if they solve the roster issues they are having this year.
In a weird way it almost feels like Michigan football. We have a very good recruiting class that may fix some issues. But the class lacks a couple of positions that are glaring holes in the roster. MSU doesn’t have a solution at center coming in and it isn’t clear is Akins solves the PG issue.
Really?
The issue is that MSU has terrible PG play and terrible interior play. It doesn’t mean that Tom Izzo doesn’t know how to coach offense.
I’d say 90% of this team’s issues stem from roster construction.
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Sophomore Sissoko and freshman Boakye should help IMO.
Fair enough. Logical. Let me ask a different question. If Beilein were handed the MSU roster (or choose your favorite offensive guru), what would they do differently to generate more efficient shots?
I don’t think there are really any easy answers. The answer is to play more and more through Henry because he’s your most talented player but he turns the ball over a lot and isn’t a great shooter.
Beilein didn’t look like an offensive genius in 2014-15 and it wasn’t because he forgot how to optimize an offense. You need good players to have a good team.
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True, though it feels like they are better than they’ve been showing. I think Izzo should play more Hauser/Hall (just not against Williams/Eddy), I think as frustrating as it has been, you need to try and get Watts going, and maybe live with some of the Cissoko growing pains.
It will be interesting to see how much he leans into the Langford, Kithier, Loyer types who are trustworthy but limited.
Otherwise I guess we can just continue to point and laugh at their long-2 offense.
I think it’s just a team that doesn’t fit well together. Lots of athletes and highly recruited players - but for whatever reason, not a team that fits (not having an A1 point guard and having the Watts experiment fail hurts big time). Sometimes teams are more than their collective parts, some less - MSU seems to be less.
They don’t have anybody that can create their offense. You need at least one player who can consistently create their own shot to be able to run any kind of offense.
Sotos starting…
Yeah, kind of reminds me of Zak Irvin was that guy for long stretches for U-M. He just wasn’t completely capable of being an efficient creator offensively.
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This will be…interesting.
They better.
Plus the rest of this season will determine who stays/goes/transfers: Marble, Hall, Bingham, even Watts. Important stretch for Aaron Henry, too. Can’t imagine he wants to return for another season.
Langford returns to finally optimize his take 2 dribbles from behind the 3-point line and shoot an 18’ jumper legacy.
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