Lackluster Spartan Effort Still Yields a Win

 

Izzo had a lot of questions and very few answers on Sunday. Photo courtesy of Mark Boomgaard.

 

If you expected much today from the Spartans you were in the minority. Today’s game to put it nicely was simply a gimme between the Maui Tournament and Duke on Wednesday.

 

The Spartans beat Tennessee Tech 73 to 55, but come one, even the parents of the Tech players never doubted it. What MSU didn’t plan on, is that the major underdog still came in wanting to prove something.

 

When you are a perennial power like MSU, every school sees you for lack of a better term as their Super Bowl. Tech played tough even though they were superiorly undermanned and it helped their cause that for a lot of the game the Spartans were sloppy.

 

Izzo said, “I am going to go to sleep tonight thinking about turnovers. I think we had some rust from the trip. I am very disappointed with how we played.”

 

The Spartans had 17 turnovers in the game. Inexcusable against a good opponent, let alone today’s sacrificial lamb. As you can imagine Izzo wasn’t happy with them.

 

Durrell Summers became just the 41st player in MSU basketball history to score 1,000+ points in his career and he led the Spartans with 21 points today. After the game he told me of his accomplishment, “It felt good, but it was really a minor footstep. There is a lot more things ahead I want to accomplish that are a lot more important.”

 

No matter what the reason or excuse for today’s performance the Spartans have a quick turn around time as they head to Duke for a Wednesday night contest. Coach K is Izzo’s arch nemesis and anyone who spends time with Izzo can tell you that he is constantly judges himself and his program with K and Duke.

 

The two biggest highlights of the game were

 

1. 15:49 of the second half the crowd came alive when over the PA they announced the coach of the Big Ten Champs Mark Dantonio!
2. 12:00 left in the second half Derrick Nix entered the game for the first time to a gigantic ovation.