Michigan State (which is in Michigan) Post Game Thread | Page 3 | The Boneyard
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Michigan State (which is in Michigan) Post Game Thread

I hope Reed is all better bc we got beat on the boards all night
38-34 UConn.

We were out for most of the game but I listened to the MSU broadcast starting at the 14 minute mark of the second half when we got home.

Lots of respect for UConn. Acknowledged we have way more titles in the past twenty years as anyone else, praised the defense, lamented the turnovers by Fears in the first half, said Izzo will not be happy with the effort and the rebounding and mentioned Carr's performance as somewhat disappointing.

Izzo came on and only spoke for 3-4 minutes. Not happy with the effort, said it was a great atmosphere and a good test and wakeup call for the young guys. He was clearly expecting more, maybe because we were missing two important guys, but he didn't say that. Just seemed to be the elephant in the room.
 
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Best stretch of the game was without a center on the floor and AK at the 5. Encouraging for Ross to have that type of game vs a high major/top 25 caliber opponent, wouldn't surprise me if gets the nod over Stewart to start the season while Mullins is out, Stewart is still mostly just floating in and out of the game.
A lot of guys familiar with the offense.
 
JStew started off looking great. Aggressive on O and D. Overall he played well. But he still fell into a trademark JStew la-la land stretch where he just disappeared. Such an enigma. Want to love him but he frustrates so much.

JRoss looked really good overall. I don’t think he fell badly for a pump fake all game. He was good for 2/game last year. Played offense with purpose. His stat line for rebs and assists looked meager, but really, his D assignments didn’t give him that many opportunities to get them. Cautiously optimistic. If he can bring this consistently, we are in really good shape on the wing

Reibe just needs more game minutes. Like what I’m seeing overall from him.

Demary looked game-rusty but I liked what he brought overall

Alex needs to finish those drives more consistently in Year 4. Just too many off the backboard bricks.

Koroma is a great 4/5 to give us a few minutes, break-glass-in_emergency for injuries/fouls guy. Same with Millender.

Furphy showed that knack and feel for the game. More minutes will do him and us good.

Liked Solo’s aggressive takes when they were overplaying his 3’s.

All in all, our bench/3rd stringers played a tin of minutes and we comfortably handled a top 25 team without arguably our two best players. !!!
 
Going to be fun watching the boneyard slowly realize this version of Ross is a starter for us if he can keep this up

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That's a good start but if you reward the other team with 2 foul shots every time then it's not really good defense.
I agree, but it’s also hard for me to imagine most games getting called like that. It made me wonder if there was an instruction to call it tight to help facilitate injury protection before the season starts. Does anyone know if the foul count has been a trend across these high profile exhibitions?
 
Gotta be mostly positive.

Missing two starters.

Riebe gets twice as many rebounds as Samson Johnson would get in a week. And Riebe is the back up. Looks like he can play 16-20 minutes and foul trouble be damned.

Ball driving and finishing at the rim with both hands.

Karaban found his rhythm. Eventually.

Stew, Ross, Kumona, Milligan, and Furphy all showed they can be rotation pieces.
Demary seemed like he was focused on being a distributor. I am confident he is a 13-15 ppg player once games count.

Refs sucked the life out of the building.

New seats in lower bowl hide empty seats way better than the old seats did.
Agreed. Koroma looked just fine as a 3rd string center other than being exposed on that one possession.

When the game was flowing Ross looked in his element.

Hopefully Furph knocks down a shot or two to help him relax. He looked like he will belong with a little seasoning, if need be. As did Millender.
 
Reibe fouls too much, he's out of position too, but there is a lot to like with him, especially in limited minutes.

He's going to develop into a force for us.
Coach Calhoun had good things to say about Reiibe and his hands. He should be nice backup to Reed.

Like a lot of others, I thought Ross looked much improved. There was some pretty good ball movement by the team at times. Looking forward to this season.
 
I hope Reed is all better bc we got beat on the boards all night

And the opening bid on worst post of the night.
UConn was ahead on rebounding throughout the game (I turned it off with two minutes to go so I concede MSU may have ended up winning the boards for the game).
 
I got the feeling that Izzo and Hurley requested that the refs call it close as a learning opportunity. I think that is why they agreed to the 6 player fouls. Just a hunch. No way half of those fouls get called in the Big East. But I agree, UConn still plays defense too much with their hands and fouls way too much. I was at the game and it was borderline unwatchable. 10 fouls were called in the 2nd half before the first tv timeout. MSU was already in the bonus at the 16 mark. Crazy!!

I was impressed with all the newcomers including the freshman. Everyone on the floor looked like they belonged.

My daughter is a recent Dayton grad so I have followed Malachi Smith’s entire career. He was solid tonight but I have seen him way more explosive. He seemed a bit tentative maybe due to still recovering from injury. Although, he has battled injuries his entire collegian career so he is probably familiar with recovering from injury. To quote my daughter when she found out Smith transferred here: “good luck, that man is made of glass.”
 
Refs called a lot of fouls that should have been non-calls, especially early on, though continued throughout the game, that set the tone where the players weren't sure how to defend. With that said they had to try to defend somehow. Just sucked the flow of the game throughout most of it.

Ross, who took some cheapshots in the chat during most of the first half shut those haters up. I hope he can bring that every game moving forward.

The half court sets were mechanical and slow most of the game. Players not moving to their spots quickly, nor delivering the ball timely, missing the roller a number of times during the first half. Seems Hurley pointed that out at halftime, since they started finding those opportunities in the second half. It does take time for the players to learn the multi action motion offense, and there's a lot of ball ahead for them to learn and execute more quickly and instinctively.

They struggled behind the arc again, picking up where they left off against UF last year. That game was there for the taking if they could have hit their wide open 3s, but I digress.

A lot of bench players showed they belong on the court. I like our depth.

Rebounding in the second half was worry some, but getting Reed back should remedy that, plus some fierce rebounding drills for some who struggled will do wonders.

Too bad we don't have a healthy starting lineup to really see what we got. Two starters out and one of the 3, Silas, who is working off the rust from missing time recently. Better days and games are right around the corner. With that said, as much as the game was a foul cluster mess, I like how hard they played and the good things they did on both ends of the floor. Can't wait till we begin to play games that count.
 
More than a few observations:
  • Solo was noticeably more explosive going to the basket than he was last year. Needs to leverage his great FT shooting with frequent trips to the line.
  • Reibe was getting moved out of position on rebounds in the first half. Much better in the second half. Tarris needs to teach him how to be a Kodiak on the boards.
  • I really like our end-of-the-bench pieces in Koroma, Alec and Furphy. Furphy is going to impact some games without scoring.
  • Ross looked like an absolute spazz most of the first half. Light bulb goes on for the second half. Impressive.
  • Despite what many think on the ‘yard, I don’t expect Karaban to settle into freshman/soph supporting role version of AK. He will get his - with Dan’s support.
  • I kind of dig Smitty doing color with his play-by-play guy. They give off high school AV squad broadcast vibes. Smitty is less polished than Donny, but I prefer his unabashed homer viewpoint. Also, when they started to talk about foreign players, I was waiting for a Henefeld dream season story. Instead, Smitty name drops Marc Suhr and Gilad Katz. Not getting that with Donny.
 
JStew started off looking great. Aggressive on O and D. Overall he played well. But he still fell into a trademark JStew la-la land stretch where he just disappeared. Such an enigma. Want to love him but he frustrates so much.

JRoss looked really good overall. I don’t think he fell badly for a pump fake all game. He was good for 2/game last year. Played offense with purpose. His stat line for rebs and assists looked meager, but really, his D assignments didn’t give him that many opportunities to get them. Cautiously optimistic. If he can bring this consistently, we are in really good shape on the wing

Reibe just needs more game minutes. Like what I’m seeing overall from him.

Demary looked game-rusty but I liked what he brought overall

Alex needs to finish those drives more consistently in Year 4. Just too many off the backboard bricks.

Koroma is a great 4/5 to give us a few minutes, break-glass-in_emergency for injuries/fouls guy. Same with Millender.

Furphy showed that knack and feel for the game. More minutes will do him and us good.

Liked Solo’s aggressive takes when they were overplaying his 3’s.

All in all, our bench/3rd stringers played a tin of minutes and we comfortably handled a top 25 team without arguably our two best players. !!!
Stews one basket was an open sided putback. He missed his other 5 shots. He had a glimmer early but beyond that feels like empty calories on the floor way too often.

At least Ross is firmly engaged and hustling every minute he’s on the floor.

Really not much else to take away from that ghastly matchup.
 
If AK is gonna be a consistent dbl figure scorer(16ppg+)and avoid these offensive lulls he's gotta finish these shots at the rim against one defender. It was a major issue with him last season and more of the same 2 games in, he does everything right but finish on his moves.
 

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