5 thoughts on Saturday's debacle

[CappyNU]

Now that I've had a couple days to step back from what I witnessed in person, here's some thoughts I had:

I'll start by saying that at no point in this game did I think we were going to pull it off, because that's just not something we do, and so I can't say I was angry or upset at what happened. If anything, I was more bemused because while I expected Sparty to win, I didn't expect it to happen because we barely broke 10 points in a half.

• The first turning point was when Scottie Lindsey committed his 2nd foul in 30 seconds, which was a stupid and unnecessary bump of Winston at mid-court while he was bringing the ball up. At that point, we were up 27-8 through 16.5 possessions and had completely stifled the Spartans. For the next 4 and a half minutes, the score was 13-8 NU in 7.5 possessions, so while the offense was even hotter, the defense started to turn.
• The second turning point was when Benson picked up his 3rd foul, with 4:34 to go in the first half. We were up 40-16 through 24 possessions, but then had to go small with Skelly playing the 5. For the remainder of the half, we were outscored 11-9 over 6.5 possessions, and ended with 5 players having 2 fouls or more.
• The third turning point were Skelly's two unbelievably stupid fouls in a 49-second span during the first minute of the 2nd half. A constant issue throughout his career, as a senior it is inexcusable to put himself in that situation. Skelly, who up to that point had been a +14 in 11 minutes while playing the 4 in the 1st half, sat for the next 11 minutes, while MSU went 25-4 on us over 15 possessions. MSU shot 10-13 with 4 3-pointers and scored on 11 of those 15 possessions. Overall in the 2nd half, MSU scored 9 points in 13 possessions with Skelly on the floor, and 29 points in 17 possessions with him off the floor.
• The fourth turning point, was lack of depth and back-end talent. In the 2nd half, Falzon has to play 11 minutes in a row, and is lit up defensively. Benson was on the court for 7 possessions in the 2nd half, 13-0 Sparty. Brown was on the court for 5 possessions in the 2nd half (including 4 overlapping with Benson), 10-0 Sparty. Gaines, after playing all 20 minutes in the first half, surely got fatigued as a freshman, especially after playing the final 21:30 against Rutgers the other night.
• The final turning point, was absence of senior leadership when things got rough. As I already mentioned, Skelly took himself out of the game at a crucial moment, but that left Scottie Lindsey as the lone senior to step up and take charge of the team, especially after only playing 11 minutes in the first half, and with MSU clamping down on Law. As we all saw, that did not happen. Multiple instances of other players needing to pump him up, terrible body language, poor shot selection and facilitation of the offense, along with one instance that I can't seem to find on the video now, but he appeared to be glaring off into the stands around midcourt as he walked back on defense as MSU was starting to come up to the floor. In a game and moment where he could have been the rock to keep the team together, he was not able to do so.

Obviously there are other reasons why we lost this game, but I think these 5 points were definitely important moments throughout the game that portended what was ultimately to come.

Hopefully they can flush it and come out tonight strong to pick up a win against the Terps.

 

[Alaskawildkat]

Excellent analysis. As to the expectations even when we were ahead, here is the text I received early in the game from my basketball guru brother-in-law (he refs BB games throughout the state here in Alaska):

"Your Wildcats have a 17-6 lead over the number 2 team in the country right now. Tune into FOX before they blow it."


(I responded back: "Nice, now 27 to 8 for NU! Isiah Brown on the NU team grew up here in Alaska," followed by a later response, "20 to 2 run for NU with well over half of the first half in the book. 30 to 8 at the time out - this is fun. Heading out but VCR is set. Thanks again for the alert.")

As I followed the Game Day Reporting on the car radio, learned that we were at the half leading MSU by the greatest margin they had been behind for the entire season. By then I knew we had a chance to win but still wasn't ready to call it.

 

[JournCat]

You couldn’t pay me to watch a replay, but whatever caused us to fall off Winston as he started hitting threes triggered the avalanche. Probably a combination of fatigue, fouls, and having to play guys we wouldn’t normally play in a defense-minded situation. And then we had no one who could break the streak on the other end.

Now that the BC truthers and masochists have left, it is somewhat therapeutic to discuss this. Maybe.

 

[DaCat]

After all these years as a Wildcat fan, at halftime I actually thought we would pull it off. I knew we couldn't sustain the hot shooting, and was expecting a MSU charge, but I did not expect us to only score 11 points in the second half. 11 points. Scoring "only" 20 points would've resulted in a 69-65 win. Arrrrggghhhh. Why do I do this to myself?

 

[Styre]

You couldn’t pay me to watch a replay, but whatever caused us to fall off Winston as he started hitting threes triggered the avalanche. Probably a combination of fatigue, fouls, and having to play guys we wouldn’t normally play in a defense-minded situation. And then we had no one who could break the streak on the other end.

I’d need to rewatch the game, but it seemed like we were also sagging a bit off the perimeter to deny entry passes to Ward, since we were incapable of guarding him without fouling. Hard to tell for sure when I’m watching the game with my head in my hands, of course.