Michigan State basketball vs. Purdue: Scouting report, prediction
All of a sudden, Michigan State basketball is on a win streak.
Back-to-back victories wouldn’t have meant much three weeks ago when the Spartans were undefeated and ranked No. 4 in the nation. But they since fell out of the USA Today coaches Top 25 after three straight losses to open Big Ten play.
And building on the momentum of wins over Nebraska and No. 14 Rutgers is vital as MSU hosts fellow Purdue on Friday night in a year when the league may be as deep as ever.
“I'm expecting a lot out of Purdue and hopefully a lot out of Michigan State,” coach Tom Izzo said Thursday. “We’ll see if we can win another game.”
Here is what to watch when the Spartans (8-3, 2-3 Big Ten) host the Boilermakers (7-5, 2-3). Tipoff is 7 p.m. at Breslin Center, and the game will be televised on FS1:
Cutting turnovers
MSU’s 68-45 win over the Scarlet Knights on Tuesday was one of the best defensive performances of the season, with Izzo going as far as placing it among the Spartans’ standout efforts on that end in recent years.
Rutgers shot just 30.5% overall and went 3 of 12 from 3-point range, the fewest an MSU opponent made behind the arc so far this season. The Spartans also owned a 45-25 rebounding edge after losing that battle in their two previous Big Ten games.
“The motto of this program has been 'defend, rebound and run.' And if you don't defend well, you probably don't rebound as well,” Izzo said. “Because if you don't defend well, people are driving to the basket or they're scoring baskets, which is harder to run off of. But if they're driving, then you don't rebound as well, because your bigs are helping out and stuff.
“I thought we did a good job of taking away (Rutgers’) dribble penetration, which Purdue does very well, too.”
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MSU got out in transition for 15 points, its most in five Big Ten games, but also committed 18 turnovers to match a season high. The Spartans gave the ball away 14 times in the first half, and their 13.6 per game ranks 156th nationally.
“I was very pleased by our energy and our attention to detail. And of course, I had to be disappointed in something, so I was disappointed in the turnovers,” Izzo said. “Especially those turnovers in that first half. I mean, they were borderline ridiculous. Going back and looking at the tape, there were just a lot of reasons that we did it, none of them were good. But some of them were definitely correctable.”
Stopping Trevion Williams
One of the Spartans’ big missions Friday will be trying to slow down Purdue big man Trevion Williams.
The former Detroit Henry Ford Academy star — a onetime four-star recruit whom MSU “looked hard at,” Izzo said — leads the Boilermakers with 14.1 points and 9.6 rebounds a game. Williams is making 60% from the field in Purdue’s three Big Ten road games while the rest of his teammates are shooting 37.6%.
“He's a double-double machine is what he is,” Izzo said. “He can rebound, he can score. He's just becoming a great player in this league, not a good player.”
One other facet of Williams’ game that impresses MSU’s coach is the 6-foot-10 junior's ability to get his teammates involved with 2.4 assists per game. Izzo called him “the best passing big man I've seen in this league in a long time.”
“He has really good passing skills, and he can see the floor pretty well, along with being able to score in the post,” MSU sophomore Malik Hall said. “It's something that'll be a tough guard. But it’s just making sure that we always have our hand up in the post so that if he does try and pass it out or try and pass and hit a cutter, that we're ready for it.”
Williams had 16 points and seven rebounds in Purdue’s 71-42 blowout win over MSU last season. Izzo said he plans to “throw a lot of people at him,” including the long-armed tandem of reserve forwards Marcus Bingham Jr. and Mady Sissoko.
“Trevion's gonna get some buckets, OK, he's a great player,” Izzo said. “We can't let that interfere with stopping the 3-point shot. The 2s hurt you, the 3s kill you.”
Purdue update
The Boilermakers rank 45th in Division I at 37.9% from 3-point range, with Sasha Stefanovic their biggest outside threat. The 6-5 junior guard shoots 50.7% from beyond the arc (3-pointers account for 8.5 of his 11.3 points in 12 games).
Two other backcourt starters are also 3-point threats, with swingman Brandon Newman shooting 41.7% and point guard Eric Hunter Jr. hitting 31.4%. And reserve sophomore guard Isaiah Thompson has 14 of his 23 makes this season from deep, going 7 of 12 in his past five games after a three-game 0-for-7 slump.
“Since I've been here, it's always been a challenge guarding their offense,” fifth-year MSU senior Joshua Langford said. “One thing that we have to emphasize is making sure that we're not relaxing and then always communicating. We have to take that momentum that we have from defending Rutgers and bring it into this game.”
Purdue enters having lost three of its last four, all of those defeats coming on the road at Iowa, Illinois and Rutgers. The Boilermakers’ home game originally scheduled for Tuesday against Nebraska was postponed by mutual agreement “due to health and safety concerns,” according to a release Monday.
Prediction
MSU 77, Purdue 69: The Spartans’ defensive presence continues to grow, with their varied approach to defending Williams throwing off the big man, and Aaron Henry shines against his home-state foe.
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari. Read more on the Michigan State Spartans and sign up for our Spartans newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball vs. Purdue: Scouting report, prediction
