Michigan State Scores Last 18 Points to Win

Things were actually going pretty well for the Falcons.  Heading into the last media timeout of the first half, BG was up 12 points.  The last four minutes--my BG English professors taught me that this is foreshadowing--went 15-3 to MSU and it was tied at the half.

Even so, if I had told you we'd be tied at halftime, you'd have been OK with that.

BG came out hard in the second half and had an 8-point lead with 11 minutes left.   MSU had it tied with 9:35 left. BG led by 4 with 7:11 left.  The score was 72-68. The sad fact is that BG did not score again while MSU scored 18 points in that period (40-minute equivalent of 102).  

It was a disaster.  Coach said BG got a "little shot happy" and that's clear...they missed 6 3FGs in that period (40-minute equivalent of 34), some of them just rimming out and a decent number as open looks.  They also missed 2 2FGs, the front end of a 1-1, and had 3 turnovers.

MSU is a good team, it was on their floor, and the Falcons led for over 24 minutes but winning games like this is really hard for a reason.

The announcers mentioned that BG hadn't won a P5 game since 2005.  I went back and looked, that was a crazy win over Virginia Tech when there was a scramble at the rim at the buzzer and a VA Tech player tipped it into their own basket.  No replay in those days, and Dakich said after the game that his strategy was to get off the floor as fast as possible and "make them drag us out," an approach that worked out poorly in a buzzer-banging blizzard in Buffalo a while later.

Anyhow.

The game was played at 71 possessions, our slowest of the year.  BG had 1.02 points per possession, which is below the national average of 1.05.  The Falcons were outshot...their 61% on 2FG is excellent, but the 19% on 3FG is far from it....especially when 42% of your shots are from 3FG.  (Nationally, 40% of shots have been from 3FG this year). BG only shot worse from 3FG 3 times last year. Turnovers were close...MSU was dominant on the offensive boards, as expected, and made 28 of 32 FTs, while BG made 13 of 14.  Overall, BG was called for 26 fouls and MSU for 12.

Marcus Johnson had 23 points, but it took him 24 shots to get there. He was 8 of 13 from 2FG and 1-11 from 3FG.  Coach said after the game that we are asking a lot out of Marcus right now, and it was made worse with foul trouble.  He won't go 1-11 again, Coach said.  And he wasn't intended to play that many minutes.  He also led the team with 5 rebounds and had 4 turnovers.

Campbell had 14 points on 6 of 10 and 0 of 3 shooting.  He also had 4 turnovers and 2 steals.

Youssef Khayat on 3 of 5 2FG shooting and 7-7 at the line.

This is a team still very much trying to find combinations that work. Simon played 10 guys.

• Khayat 37
• Campbell 36
• Johnson 35
• Thomas 28
• Towns 26
• Green 11
• Felt 9
• Butler 8 (Down each game from 28 at Southern Miss)
• Humphrey 7
• Exacte 2
• Squire DNP

We played 19 lineups for the game.  I feel like there's a foundation with the starters--I am surprised that we haven't gotten more out of our depth. BG had 6 bench points and two players (Butler and Humphrey) had terrible +/- in limited minutes.

There is a long way to go. We can get our first D1 win on Tuesday against Niagara (#333), they lost to MSU by 36.  They are coached by Duke star Greg Paulus.