Spartans in Connecticut

[RichZ]

1. I don't care if it was an exhibition -- it was ostensibly two top 25 teams, so it does mean something more than most pre-season games.
2. I've seen in several places, that "Michigan State was whistled for 34 fouls, with 26 fouls against UConn and a total of 56 fouls called in the game" according to both FOX61 and CT Insider." I know I'm old and my mental acuity is diminishing, but did someone change math while I was napping? My noggin says that 34 and 26 add up to 60. It appears that MSU actually had 22 fouls and we had 34, which at least does add up to 56.
3. If we see officiating like last night all season long, it's a good thing we have (what last week looked like) too many players that deserve some minutes.
4. According to the box score, we would have had 4 players foul out if not for a game-time rule agreement between Hurley & Izzo to 6 fouls/man. Only Koroma had 6. Demary, Smith and Reibe were the 3 Huskies with 5 fouls each.
5. Enough with the officiating. How'd we look? Karaban & Ball led all scorers with 18 points each. We won the battle of the boards, but not by much. (38/34)
6. Our lead shrunk from 19 to 7 in the last 11 minutes. A lot of that may have been ref related, but I suspect that it was mostly due to non-regulars getting more minutes.
7. I was pleasantly surprised by Reibe's play, but I really think we need to see the team play with our starting center before we can get an honest feel for how good we might be this season. And I don't mean against cupcakes.
8. We shot a smidge under 41% from the field along with 33.3% from three and 76.7 from the line, compared to MSU's 39, 28.6 and 65.7.
9. Fears lead MSU in scoring but 10 of his 14 points came from the line and his 6 TOs matched his 6 dimes.
10. No UConn player except Malachi (0 of 2), missed more than one FT, and our two leading scorers (Ball & Karaban) were 13 of 13 between them.
11. I don't think we'll see another 1 for 7 three pointer outing from Solo. At least I hope not! He was 5 of 6 from 2 point range though. Also, I'd like to see him drop a few more dimes per game.
12. We had 11 TOs vs 12 for the other guys, and were credited with 5 steals compared to 8 for MSU.

Interesting non-game related trivia. Gavin Roberts -- Director of Sports Performance for the Men's BBall team -- has four kids. Their names are London, Cairo, Kingston and Brooklyn. I wondered if perhaps they were named after where they were conceived or born, but Kingston and Brooklyn are twins, so...

 

[upstater]

Interesting non-game related trivia. Gavin Roberts -- Director of Sports Performance for the Men's BBall team -- has four kids. Their names are London, Cairo, Kingston and Brooklyn. I wondered if perhaps they were named after where they were conceived or born, but Kingston and Brooklyn are twins, so...

Well, you never really know unless you only make an opportunity once in a blue moon.

 

[alexd]

Also, we had 13 assists on 22 fg for 59%.
A little low by UConn standards.
Again....asterisk. missing 2 starters.