At Big Ten halfway mark, Michigan State basketball fighting to clear muddled middle

EAST LANSING – For Michigan State basketball, it's 10 down, 10 to go.

With the Spartans getting back to .500 in Big Ten action despite playing incredibly uneven basketball by Tom Izzo’s standards, the remainder of MSU's schedule runs the gamut of the topsy-turvy league.

Opportunities are there for Tom Izzo to extend his NCAA tournament streak to 26 straight. The Spartans (13-8, 5-5 Big Ten) exited January at No. 23 in the NCAA's NET Rankings and No. 17 in Ken Pomeroy's rankings, so everything is trending for them in the right direction there.

But for MSU to play its way to a double-bye in the Big Ten tournament, it will need to play more like it did in the second half of Tuesday night’s 81-62 win over Michigan than it did in the first half of that game or against Wisconsin in last Friday's road loss.

Here is a look at what is ahead, starting Saturday at Breslin Center against Maryland (5:40 p.m./Fox), and how the Spartans need to navigate the last six weeks of the regular season.

The standings

The Big Ten was a muddled mess in the middle even before Nebraska knocked off visiting No. 6 Wisconsin on Thursday night.

The Spartans, at 5-5, are in a three-way tie for sixth place with the Terrapins and Indiana. They're half a game behind the 6-5 Cornhuskers, who knocked off their second top-10 team of the season in Lincoln, and half a game up on 4-5 Minnesota. They are among eight teams with four, five or six Big Ten losses occupying third-12th place in the conference standings.

At the top, the Badgers (8-2) and USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll No. 2 Purdue (9-2) have separated from the pack entering their titanic tussle Sunday at Wisconsin, with the two also closing the regular season against each other March 10 in West Lafayette, Indiana. Both could face a test down the stretch from third-place Illinois (7-3), which faces both once.

Pesky (and experienced) Northwestern, at 6-4, enters Friday in the final spot for a double-bye giving the top four teams a pass to the third day of the Big Ten tournament, which starts March 13 in Minneapolis. The Wildcats’ final 10 games all are against teams below them in the standings.

The bottom of the league also is starting to see some clarity, with the Spartans’ victory dropping the Wolverines to last at 2-8. A home loss to Penn State on Wednesday leaves Rutgers at 2-7, while the Nittany Lions are tied with Iowa at 4-6, just ahead of 3-7 Ohio State. The bottom four teams open play the first day of the Big Ten tourney and face a long path to a potential Sunday finale.

The schedule

It is an even home-away distribution for MSU over the final 10 games, with two chances for marquee wins.

The next five games for the Spartans are repeat matchups, beginning with the return home game against the Terps and a road trip Tuesday to Minnesota. MSU escaped Jan. 21 at Maryland, 61-59, and pulled away from the Gophers at home on Jan. 18, 77-66.

A shot at redemption at home comes Feb. 10 against the 14th-ranked Illini, who held off the Spartans on Jan. 11, 71-68. Illinois hosted MSU that day without leading scorer Terrence Shannon Jr., who has since returned from suspension.

Those three games are followed by consecutive road trips with a quick turnaround on Feb. 14 and 17 — at Penn State and Michigan. The Spartans blew out the Nittany Lions on Jan. 4 at Breslin, 92-61.

Then comes back-to-back home games with Iowa (Feb. 20) and Ohio State (Feb. 25). Four of MSU’s final five regular-season games are single-play matchups against the Hawkeyes and Buckeyes, along with the tall task of a visit to Purdue on March 2 and the finale at Indiana on March 10. The Spartans catch somewhat of a break for that game at Assembly Hall, with the Hoosiers’ student section on spring break.

The last day of classes before MSU’s spring break is two days before the OSU game, but students will be back on campus in time for the Spartans’ March 6 shot at redemption against Northwestern. That also will be senior day and the final games (for sure) for Tyson Walker, Malik Hall and Steven Izzo.

It helps Izzo’s team that it is done playing Wisconsin, which picked up a season sweep of MSU for the first time in 20 years with last week’s victory in Madison. Getting a single game against the Boilermakers also is a plus, but that is countered by having to play at Mackey Arena, where the Spartans have not won in 10 years, with six straight losses.

The players

Perhaps the biggest key to the back half of the Big Ten schedule will be keeping Walker healthy.

The 6-foot-1, 185-pound senior continues to draw the attention of defenses, and each of MSU’s next three opponents took a bruising, physical approach to guarding Walker. There were shin splints early in the season that he played through, and a sickness that kept him out of his first game as a Spartan in mid-November. A hip injury in early December continues to be bothersome at times, particularly as Walker takes hard falls from hard fouls, some of which aren't being called.

On Tuesday, he appeared to be battling another issue which he pushed past to stay on the court. Izzo admitted Thursday after practice that it was a groin injury, but he anticipates Walker will continue to play through it and won't let it affect his team-leading 31.8 minutes a game.

All that wear and tear, along with facing every team’s best defender, appears to finally be catching up to him. In his past five games, Walker is shooting just 37.3% overall and 33% from 3-point range, averaging 14.4 points — 4.5 below his team-leading 18.9 per game.

With Walker going 0-for-6 from 3-point range against U-M, the Spartans got an encouraging boost from Jaden Akins at both ends of the floor. The junior swingman scored a career-high 23 points by making seven of 10 3-point attempts. Izzo would love Akins to find more consistency, just as Hall has by scoring in double figures over eight of MSU’s past nine games. Both players are critical to defense and rebounding continuing to improve as well.

Senior A.J. Hoggard continues to grow as well, finally settling in to attack the basket more frequently off the dribble. And he and backup Tre Holloman continue to limit their turnovers and push the pace in transition.

MSU’s top four of Walker, Hoggard, Hall and Akins are combining to score 52.9 of the team’s 76 points a game.

Getting more in the post remains a challenge. Jaxon Kohler continues to make progress in his return from offseason left foot surgery, but he also remains a defensive work-in-progress and at times seems unsure of what to do. Carson Cooper and Mady Sissoko have shown spurts of excellence but generally remain offensive vacuums and are needed to defend and rebound at a much more consistent pace.

Freshmen Coen Carr and Xavier Booker remain enigmas, both in their up-and-down play and in Izzo’s trust in them defensively. Each has skills MSU needs — and must bring out of them and integrate into Izzo’s rotation — if the Spartans want to reach the Sweet 16 for a second straight year and take a run at a Final Four that was only part of their goal before the season began.

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball fighting to clear muddled middle in Big Ten