Spartans Move to 21-6 and 11-3 in the Big Ten with 72-58 Win Over Indiana

Assembly Hall Bloomington, IN  The Spartans came in tonight after having failed to play at their level in the last four games. Tonight the Spartans, as

Assembly Hall

Bloomington, IN

 

Hoosier Daddy? Tonight it was Tom Izzo and the Spartans. Photo courtesy of Kevin Krzeminski

The Spartans came in tonight after having failed to play at their level in the last four games. Tonight the Spartans, as expected, turned on the jets and took care of the rebuilding Indiana Hoosiers.

 

MSU Coach Tom Izzo played an amazing 11 players with quality minutes and his Spartans athleticism and talent mauled the helpless Hoosiers. Izzo talked about the amount of players, “We had nine guys play nine minutes or more and one played eight.”

 

The Spartans had an incredibly balanced night with 10 players scoring and they had another impressive performance in the turnover department. They only had eight compared to Indiana’s 16, but the Spartans were out rebounded by six.

 

Head Coach Tom Izzo was pleased with his teams bounce back performance, “For us it was a workman like game. Not flashy and nothing great.” He added, “For the first time we got the ball inside…another big key was at halftime we were up five or six and we put in some of our guys who haven’t played a lot and we expanded our lead.”

 

What was more amazing then the Spartans win, was how far Indiana has fallen. My friend Bob Kravitz of the Indy Star on his radio program had to try to calm the multitudes complaining about how poor of a job former Izzo assistant Tom Crean has done and for the first time in recent memory there were (according to several Indiana media) four thousand empty seats. Crean has not helped himself, being short with the Indiana media however.

 

This once proud program has fallen to complainers who fail to see the complexity of the job before Crean and as a fan of the game is sad to see. Callers on the radio compared the IU job to Kentucky and how fast the Wildcats have regained national prominence. Comparing the two is foolish. The literal rebuilding of the program is a massive four year project.

 

In the interest of full disclosure I am not a Crean fan as a coach or personally, but to be riding him after a year in a half is plain ignorant. For a group of people that pride themselves on being basketball aficionados, it truly appears that pride has come before the fall.

 

Coach Izzo has repeatedly called Indiana an elite school and perhaps the empty seats will encourage him. He has repeatedly called out the MSU fans for empty seats this season, none as empty as it was here tonight.

 

The Spartans stats leaders were:

Morgan 10 pts 3 rebounds

Roe 6 pts 4 rebounds

Nix 6 pts 3 rebounds

Lucas 13 pts 4 assists

Allen 10 pts

Summers 7 pts

Green 14 pts 4 rebounds

Sherman 2 pts 4 rebounds