Spartans Minus Dawson Take Down Indiana 74-72

Spartans Minus Dawson Take Down Indiana The Assembly Hall Bloomington, IN The Michigan State Spartans didn’t have star senior power forward Branden Dawson

Spartans Minus Dawson Take Down Indiana

The Assembly Hall

Bloomington, IN

The Michigan State Spartans didn’t have star senior power forward Branden Dawson here today, but it didn’t matter. Michigan State secured a two day bye in the Big Ten Tournament, a number three seed and a big win over the Hoosiers 74 to 72. With this win and that seed the Spartans won’t play in Chicago until Friday night with an expected tip after 9:30 PM EST.

Travis Trice had 21 points and Alvin Ellis III had a career high 16. Marvin Clark added 14 points and Matt Costello lead all Spartans with eight rebounds.

Former Izzo assistant and current IU head coach Tom Crean said, “Michigan State is going to bring the toughness out in you, or it's going to expose what's not there and there was some times on the backboards we don't do a good job there and had to do more subbing than what we like to do.”

A verbose Tom Izzo said, “I guess I look at it like I got outcoached and we got outplayed down the stretch, but we’ve be unlucky a lot this year and maybe luck came to our side for once. I think we deserved to win because we played pretty most of the second half. Some my key guys really struggled today. Some of our best players were Alvin Ellis played well and Trav made eight of nine free throws. We celebrate that around here. We just got to find ways to be sharper down the stretch, but if you miss free throws what are you going to do?”

Crean was full of praise for Travis Trice. Telling us that we will see him on an NBA roster some day. MSU shot seven of twenty-eight from three, but Trice was three of nine. “They (MSU) are one of the best three point shooting teams, are they not in they got some kick outs when we were scrambling inside of the glass, but you need length on Travis, twice as much as possible, and we don't have that as much. So we have got to have some tenaciousness with it, and he made some big plays. He's really good. He's really good. That's a kid that you're going to be watching NBA games, he's going to be on a roster and he's going to be playing, whether he starts as a security guard, third guard, something like that, he's got it. They have done a great job with him.”

IU star G Yogi Ferrell talked about the effort of the Spartans who won the battle of the boards. “They got a lot of second chance opportunities with the offensive rebound kick outs. We've just got to fight them better. Got to crack them before they come into the paint because we know that they are big, so just got to carve out space and try to get the rebound.”

Izzo couldn’t be a glass half full guy even for one day. He said about winning the boards without Dawson that, “Yeah, but Indiana's not all that big and they've been rebounding … I still say the guy, Troy Williams has been so good, so good on film. He's always around the boards, he's always back cutting, he's always rebounding. He had 14 in one game. And for some reason he just didn't play well and that was the difference in the boards. We only out-rebounded them by five, but we did get 15 offensive and that was big.”

To see the Spartans win this game without Dawson was an amazing thing. Izzo said of when he knew his star would be out, “Yesterday I was 99 percent sure. Then he talked about trying it today but the doctors wouldn’t let him, just it’s not that his test scores were that bad it’s just that the progression that they want to see … he didn’t do anything yesterday and he needed to, so I knew coming in here that he wasn’t gonna play, 99 percent, and I knew this morning it was 100.”

I had to ask Izzo about this game. He has been clamoring for more toughness and guts from his guys and he got it today. They didn’t play great, but it doesn’t discount the win. He agreed, “Yeah, because I tell you what, they played hard, man. Indiana played really hard and you know I don’t know why Williams just doesn’t play well against us because that kid’s been playing so hard. I was impressed since our game, he’s been playing so hard. He rebounds, he dunks, he is cutting. We did a pretty good job on those baseline cuts and that’s the one thing we put a bunch of time on, we told them before they went to bed last night, sleep on baseline cuts, baseline cuts, baseline cuts. We did a pretty good job on that but I feel good about the win, guys, just you do the things we did at the end … I mean can you imagine he makes the free throw at the end? I mean, unbelievable. We haven’t made a free throw all year. We could have used that in five games and we’d have five more wins. Unbelievable.”

So now the attention to turns to the aforementioned Big Ten Tournament. The Spartans get a double bye (they do not play on the first two days of Wednesday and Thursday) and how can that help his squad. Especially Dawson. “Yeah for Dawson but we got the extra day for Izzo. I mean, we’ve got to practice. We’ve gone through a hell of a stretch here too, I don’t know how many games we’ve played in the last 12, 13 days. We’ve had no days off, it’s been brutal. And we really, we’ve got spring break, we need to practice. I mean I’ve got to get Marv and Alvin, those guys, Colby’s never had a rep on the first group. He’s on the scout team every day, you know?”

So for now MSU improves to 21-10 and 12-6 in the Big Ten for the season. An amazing job by Izzo considering this may be his worst team (as far as the sum of its parts, not character)of the last 18 years.

Izzo wasn’t looking for excuses today, but if you are Spartan you have to appreciate his commitment to education. The Spartans bused to Bloomington because of plan issues. They could have flown, but they would have had to take an early flight and Izzo wasn’t going to let his players skip class. “We had a bus here because I wouldn’t let my guys out of class at 2:30 in the afternoon so we could have flown in earlier. So we had practice at 6:30 in the morning. Does the NCAA, does anybody care about student welfare there? Nobody knows those things.”

I said earlier this season that Spartan Nation’s expectations maybe were simply to high considering past success. I got crushed for it. Izzo tentatively agrees with me. This team has over achieved. Not by much, but they have.

Sit back and enjoy it people. It was a long time from Duffy Daugherty to Mark Dantonio with sustained success and one day it might be a long time from Izzo to whomever. For now, the Spartans head home to get healthy, Spartan Nation heads to Chicago and Izzo’s team will be going to the Big Dance for the 18th straight season.