Michigan State basketball's next challenge: Fix shooting vs. good defense in tough place to play

EAST LANSING — Even with a plane to New York and the Sweet 16 waiting for him, Tom Izzo kept revisiting Michigan State basketball’s two-minute disaster at Iowa.

And just how important that regulation collapse and 112-106 overtime loss to the Hawkeyes on Feb. 25 has molded the Spartans since.

Particularly during timeouts in the close-out stage of Sunday’s 69-60 NCAA tournament win over Marquette in Columbus, Ohio. How the Spartans kept discussing the focus on details that betrayed them a month ago, about not giving up a 3-pointer, about playing tough inside, about boxing out on free throws.

One of the biggest things Izzo always tries to teach coming to fruition in front of his eyes: They were becoming a player-coached team.

“When I say they learned, I think what I love about this team the most is we learned how to take blame, take responsibility, take ownership,” Izzo said Tuesday at Breslin Center. “We all owned that Iowa game. ... And I think when you can take blame, you can grow. And I think that's what this team has done.”

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Those lessons are vital at this win-or-go home point of the postseason. No. 7 seed MSU (21-12) must now do it for a second straight weekend against another lower seed playing exceptional basketball, facing No. 3 seed Kansas State (25-9) in the East Region semifinal.

Tipoff is 6:30 p.m. at Madison Square Garden in New York (TBS).

“It means everything,” said senior Tyson Walker, a native of nearby Westbury, New York. “Just growing up, you see all the tournaments being played in New York, and you just want to play in it. And now I get the chance to.”

The Spartans put together perhaps their best defense of the season in back-to-back wins over Marquette on Sunday and 10-seed Southern Cal on Friday, holding both high-scoring offenses to 60 points apiece.

It was yet another reason why Izzo believed Sunday’s victory in particular felt like an old-school MSU performance, with tenacious defense, ferocious rebounding and attacking the basket on offense.

“What this team is becoming is a little bit like some of the other teams I've had early in my career, where one day we can beat you offensively, like Florida, and one day we can be you defensively, like we did against Wisconsin,” he said, referencing the Spartans' 2000 Final Four victories. “I think that would be good. And if ever they came together, then you'd really have a chance to do something special.”

That’s because the Spartans did so while struggling from 3-point range at Nationwide Arena, going a combined 7-for-30 in the two games after making 49.3% from beyond the arc over the final seven games of the regular season. MSU also went made just three of 16 3s in its Big Ten tournament loss to Ohio State at United Center in Chicago on March 10.

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The Spartans entered the NCAA tournament 0-8 in games in which they made five or fewer 3-pointers, yet won the weekend in Columbus despite going 5-for-14 against USC on Friday and 2-for-16 against Marquette on Sunday.

“Together this whole weekend, we put together a couple of stretches where it's the best basketball we've played all year,” senior forward Malik Hall said Sunday in Columbus. “I think it's really exciting, because when we really think about it, we didn't hit 3s today and usually we're shooting really well. When you add that on top of taking care of the ball more, I think it's really scary.

“And it's something that's gonna kind of make us a hard team to play against going down the road if we can get those shots to fall and things like that.”

Easier said than done.

MSU must try to shake its three-game shooting slump against a Kansas State team that ranks 15th in the nation in 3-point defense, allowing just 29.7% from behind the arc. And the Spartans also hope to fix their shots in an arena they endured one of their worst shooting performances of the winter.

MSU hit just four of 21 3-pointers and shot a season-low 34.5% overall in a 61-55 loss to Rutgers on Feb. 4 at Madison Square Garden. It was a game Izzo said Tuesday that the Spartans “got our butts kicked” because they “didn't shoot it very well, we didn't score many points.”

“Last time we were there, it wasn't the result we wanted,” junior center Mady Sissoko said Sunday of the last trip to MSG. “But we're looking forward to get back out there.”

Then again, the Spartans also struggled defensively late in the regular season before turning that around and getting stingy again in the NCAAs.

"If you don't go through some adversity, if you don't go through some problems, first of all, you don't enjoy the good times as much," Izzo said. "But second of all, you're not prepared. … In life, the journey you go through, you better learn from the positives and the negatives of the journey and figure out how to deal with them and how to excel. And I think this team has done a damn good job of that."

While Izzo said he believes the recency of playing at MSG will help MSU; to him it is less about knowing the shooting background and more about understanding what it’s like to step into the building and onto the floor at "the Mecca of Basketball" that gives his players a little advantage.

“As I learned in 'Hoosiers,' the court is 94-by-50, the basket's 10 feet high, the free-throw line's 15 feet away,” said Izzo, who is 4-12 all-time at Madison Square Garden. “Whether you're in New York and somebody's selling you a fake Rolex or whether you're in Iron Mountain and you're trying to figure out which farm you want to go to or which mine you want to go to, it's no different. So I don't know.

“I'm glad we were there once, not because of the sightlines and all that. There's just an aura of walking through those halls and seeing those pictures of all those actors and performers and boxers — I just love looking at that group — and the great players. And I think it's more about the aura of it than it is the actual sightlines.”

And much like the energy he’s sensing around his program since returning from Ohio, Izzo knows New York provides a buzz for basketball unlike other places. MSU had “more of a walkthrough/film session/teaching point” on Monday, Izzo said. The Spartans were set to practice Tuesday afternoon at Breslin, then board a plane for the Big Apple.

As the song goes, if they can make it there, they can make it anywhere. Win the weekend again, and a spot in the Final Four in Houston will be the next big stage.

“Not only do you play in the Sweet 16, but it's in New York City,” Izzo said. “Which for me isn't as big as I think it is for players in that. … And yet we are gonna be excited to be in there playing against a great team with a chance to play in an Elite Eight on the line.

“It doesn't get any better than that.”

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

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball tries to fix shots at Madison Square Garden