That was my thought yesterday, too. As Izzo heads into his winter years with the furrows of his scowl now permanently etched in–the perils of his coaching inflexibility once again exposed–and Juwan stands poised to pull down a monster class, having proven (again) that he can coach the crap out of the ball. . . time to recalibrate expectations. Interesting how you can drag along for weeks in darkness, that shaft of sunlight suddenly breaking through. Lots of stops and starts to go, but yesterday was exhilerating.
BQ is absolutely mystified that MSU’s lack of quality role players is an issue preventing them from looking like a contender. That’s how it’s always been! Izzo with senior role players around his stars is amazing. Izzo without them is, well, far more entertaining in press conferences.
If Izzo finds another Cleaves, Dray or Winston, there will be plenty of excellent basketball to come from EL, and maybe another real contender. As long as he’s got those senior role players, which this year he does not.
Livers 31, Teske 28, Simpson 31, Brooks 31, Wagner 32 vs. Winston 37 and Tillman 36. We had the perfect amount of minutes for starters, I guess because the refs stayed out of the game for the most part. Also Simpson was rested during his minutes by only being partially responsible for running our offense and not having to play against Winston all day. Hats off to JW and the staff!