Tom Izzo blames himself for Michigan State’s back-to-back defeats, and the coach vows to have his team well-prepared for its home game against Indiana on Saturday.
The 17th-ranked Spartans were blown out at Rutgers last Saturday, 84-63, then lost at home to Wisconsin on Tuesday, 70-62. Izzo was disappointed with the team’s effort on both occasions.
“I have to do a better job,” he said. “The team doesn’t play with the toughness and the tenacity, that falls on my shoulders. I’m going to take every bit of it and figure out a way that we do differently, hopefully on Saturday.”
Michigan State (17-6, 8-4 Big Ten) was atop the conference standings prior to those losses, and Izzo generally had been pleased with his team’s play, outside of its penchant for turnovers.
“It’s not like this has been all year. It’s not like we haven’t played with any pizzazz, because we have,” he said. “Our fast break hasn’t been run very well lately. I just think that we’re out of sync a little bit and we have to figure out what we’re going to do at our point guard and then we’ll all get after a little bit, but it’s going to fall on me. It could be a good week. … I’m going to work at it starting (Tuesday). See if we can change it by Saturday.”
The Spartans notched a 12-point win at Wisconsin in January. Their offense stalled in the rematch, as they made just 3 of 14 3-point attempts and committed 12 turnovers.
Forward Joey Hauser said the Spartans need to do a much better job crashing the offensive boards.
“That’s got to be our backbone right now; offensive rebounds, being tough and physical, getting extra possessions,” he said. “I think that’s where a lot of toughness is in basketball games is rebounding the ball, so we’ve got to get back to that.”
This will be the only regular-season meeting between the Hoosiers and Spartans. Indiana (16-7, 7-6) also has dropped two straight — a 74-57 home defeat to Illinois on Saturday and a 59-51 loss at Northwestern on Tuesday.
In the latter, coach Mike Woodson benched five players — starters Xavier Johnson and Parker Stewart and reserves Tamar Bates, Michael Durr and Khristian Lander — for violating team rules.
“You’ve got to do all the necessary things to win on and off the floor,” Woodson said. “It doesn’t start on the floor. You’ve got to do all the necessary things off the floor as well. We have rules. When you disobey those rules, things have got to happen.”
Woodson said Thursday the players would be reinstated for the Michigan State game.
“I’m very disappointed because I’m strictly about team,” Woodson said. “Those guys in the locker room know I’m very upset about it.”
Without his usual rotation, Woodson only used seven players against the Wildcats. They committed only seven turnovers but shot 37 percent from the field.
The Hoosiers’ top threat, Trayce Jackson-Davis, shot just 4 of 13 from the field and finished with 13 points and 11 rebounds.
“When you’re shorthanded, you’ve got to do all the necessary things on both ends of the floor to win games,” Woodson said. “The fact that we were shorthanded, I still thought we played well.”
–Field Level Media
