Forget the three wins (you're welcome). Let's talk about the one that got away.
First off, is there anything more predictable than watching Wisconsin make a "better" team look utterly and completely clueless in the Kohl Center? First Duke, then Purdue, now red-hot Michigan State have all felt Bucky's sting when entering his damn; er, dam. So, what did we learn about each team from tonight's game?
Strangely enough, very little. I have gotten to the point where I just throw out road losses to Wisconsin. It doesn't make Purdue or Michigan State any less capable of getting to Indy in April. It doesn't eliminate Duke as a Final Four contender. No, the latter was done by Georgetown sending a huge 'flashback to last march' reminder that the Devils still have a devil of a time defending athletic, versatile fours. On the brightside they might have made sophomore Greg Monroe a few extra million dollars this Summer.
Back to Bucky. One thing I did take away from the game was an interesting post-game comment from Coach Bo Ryan, where he immediately, and nearly completely credited the win and the frequent success against State to his assistant coach. Erin Andrews looked perpelexed by this answer, but it actually makes a ton of sense. Michigan State is excellent with creating mismatches and overloads through on the ball screens. It gives their guards room to create off the dribble (especially Kalin Lucas) and forces help to come. This leads to easy shots. There is a reason why Michigan seems to have very balanced scoring every season. Wisconsin not only hedged over those screens, in many cases they flat out "jumped the route" to borrow a football term. All this means is that they simply refused to let the screener get to the ball and get set. This creates a lack of sync in the offense (which was obvious committing 13 turnovers to Wisconsin's 5), and over-reliance on tough outside shots (often contested, they shot just 22% from 3-point range), and an lack of quality shots, which leads to numbers advantages heading the opposite direction. In fact, if not for Michigan States superior athleticism on the glass (11 offensive rebounds) the result would have been even worse.
The synopsis of a long answer: coaching matters, and few in the country do it better than Bo Ryan. I honestly think a team like Michigan State with the constant ball screening would create sever difficulties in March for a lot of teams far more "talented" than Wisconsin; say Kentucky for example. Michigan State is one of the best seven or eight teams in the country, no doubt. So, yes, coaching matters. And if Bo Ryan says his assistant coach is the best in the country, well, frankly I'm inclined to believe him.
The other thing to take away from this game? The Big Ten will be fun in February. Both Ohio State and Purdue benefited tonight, joining Wisconsin at just two games back of Michigan State. Purdue still plays the Spartans twice, and already took their obligatory Kohl Center loss on the chin. It will be intersting down the stretch with four good teams slugging it out for the Big Ten title and top seeds in March.
I'm pretty sure Spartan fans know exactly where that fist went tonight...
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