Indiana University Athletics
GRAHAM: Elevating Standards
3/2/2019 7:14:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By: Andy Graham, IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Michigan State under Tom Izzo has, for the past quarter-century or so, become something akin to what Indiana was under Bob Knight.
Not just one of the Big Ten's basketball standard-bearers.
The primary standard-bearer.
Indiana fully intends to regain that status. That will take time.
But a season-sweep of the vaunted Spartans, last pulled off by IU's 2013 Big Ten champs, would seem a step in the right direction.
Coach Archie Miller's host Hoosiers will enter Saturday's 12 p.m. tipoff against No. 6-ranked MSU as underdogs, which was also their status heading into their 79-75 overtime win Feb. 2 over the Spartans at East Lansing.
Izzo, reviewing that initial outing against IU while meeting the media this week, delivered this succinct verdict:
"They out-played us."
And as with most Hall of Fame coaches, Izzo tends not to take that sort of thing lying down.
"When a team gets 20 offensive rebounds, you're getting out-played," Izzo continued. "When a team shoots 50 percent from 3-point range, when they usually shoot a lot lower, that means you got out-played."
So even coming off Sunday's rousing 77-70 win at arch-rival Michigan, Izzo doubtless found various ways to remind his Spartans about that first IU game during this week's five subsequent practice days.
Miller, in his second season at IU, has used that first Michigan State game as a different sort of reminder – what can happen when sustained effort is coupled with an unwavering focus on simply winning the game at-hand.
And he made the same point after the Hoosiers outlasted Wisconsin in double-overtime Tuesday, IU's first victory since that trip to MSU.
"They're using their energy level and their effort to give them confidence, which is what we had at one point in the season," said Miller of his Hoosiers, harkening back to December days when IU eked out enough close wins to fuel what became a 13-2 start to the season.
"We weren't always perfect on offense and we weren't shooting the ball well," Miller continued, "but one thing is we had a confidence about us that we can compete. And we can play hard. And we can defend. And we're doing that again."
The Hoosiers did it much of the time last month between their wins over MSU and Wisconsin, but kept ending up on the wrong side of very close scores against Iowa (twice), Ohio State and Purdue.
That changed against Wisconsin. And Indiana needs to follow suit Saturday, and through the end of the regular season and into the Big Ten Tournament, to maintain hopes for a NCAA tournament bid.
Michigan State (23-5 overall, 14-3 Big Ten), headed for its 22nd straight NCAA tourney appearance, is playing for a conference championship.
The Spartans are currently tied with Purdue atop the league standings, both a half-game up on Michigan in the loss column.
"We're in a better situation than most teams, because we're playing for something," junior point guard Cassius Winston told the Detroit Free Press after Thursday's practice. "It's easier to get up for a game when it's for a championship."
Winston is a big reason MSU is a title contender again this season.
Tuesday saw Winston named the Naismith Trophy Men's National Player of the Week after he averaged 27.5 points and 8.0 assists in the previous week's wins over Rutgers and Michigan.
For the season, Winston leads MSU's scoring with a 19.2 average. He also leads in steals with 32. He's shooting 47 percent from the field (43 percent from 3-point range) and 83 percent at the foul line. He's supplied 208 assists against just 79 turnovers.
"Cassius Winston right now, if it ended today, would arguably be the Big Ten Player of the Year," Miller said Friday. "He's had that type of impact on their team and what he does for them.
"Xavier Tillman and Kenny Goins are doing a fantastic job with Nick Ward going out of the lineup. Those guys have really stepped up and they're getting great shooting and great contributions from their perimeter guys as well.
"They are an excellent team and have been all season. They've dealt with adversity with their top couple guys being out and they still seem to, obviously, fit the mold of a championship type of team. They've got a lot of guys doing a lot of good things."
Ward, a 6-9 junior powerhouse inside, is currently out indefinitely with a hairline fracture in his hand. He was averaging 15.1 points and 6.7 boards through 26 games. The Spartans lost his classmate, another 15-point scorer, when 6-5 Josh Langford went out for the season in December with a stress-fracture in his foot.
More recent MSU maladies have included Kyle Ahrens' iffy back and Matt McQuaid slightly spraining an ankle in practice this week. Izzo indicated Thursday he hopes both will be available.
Indiana (14-14, 5-12) is one of the few teams that could actually top the Spartans when it comes to injury woes this season, but the Hoosiers are now probably has healthy as they've been since December.
IU freshman point guard Rob Phinisee, for example, seems to be hitting his stride again after a concussion cost him almost a month.
Phinisee had 11 points, four rebounds, four assists, zero turnovers and three steals Tuesday against Wisconsin, on the heels of 13 points, seven rebounds and four steals in the OT loss at Iowa.
"He's definitely playing the best that he's played since pre-injury," Miller said of Phinisee. "It took him obviously a good while to get his rhythm back. He lost confidence. He lost conditioning. But he's played his way through it, and I think he's as healthy as he's been all year.
"He's really, really playing an outstanding game defensively for us right now. He's our best perimeter defender by far. I think offensively he's starting to get a lot more aggressive. You're seeing him get in transition to the basket. You're seeing him get fouled a little bit more. I don't think he's afraid, right now, to take shots."
The Hoosiers have also benefited from the re-emergence of 6-10 junior De'Ron Davis, which really began in the first MSU game after he missed most of January to an ankle injury.
"De'Ron … since he came back for that first Michigan State game, where he's been healthy … he's been able to give us a presence inside," Miller said. "We can throw him the ball. He gives us another guy on the offensive glass that can get us second shots.
"Defensively he's the biggest body that we have, so he's able to kind of hang in there at times in between him and the rim, and he's been able to play longer minutes, which has helped our depth."
So has the emergence of redshirt-freshman forward Race Thompson, whose severe concussion cost him 24 games entirely this season before he again saw action in the last three.
Thompson played 22 minutes in relief of Davis and a foul-plagued Juwan Morgan against Wisconsin, snaring seven rebounds and defending senior Badger star Ethan Happ down low.
"Race, it's a credit to him," Miller said. "It's a credit to who he is. He's a worker. He has a year under his belt (as a redshirt), which helps him that he's not completely learning on the run.
"The fact that he was able to get in there the other night and sustain it, and compete and play, just speaks volumes about who he is as a competitor and also what he brings to the table in terms of a (being) team guy. But I thought he did as good a job as any in the game defensively for us."
The Hoosiers got another splendid performance from freshman winger Romeo Langford, who scored 22 points and hit the game-winner against Wisconsin in the final second of OT. And Justin Smith, with 12 points and six boards, probably had his best showing since posting a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds in the win at Michigan State.
Defensively, IU held Wisconsin to .391 shooting from the field (.273 from 3-point range).
"We've gotten better – especially defensively, we've gotten better," Miller said of his team in February. "I think that … one thing our team has tried to do here in our recent two, three weeks, is we've really tried to raise our level in terms of how hard we're playing, how committed we are to doing the little things, and it's helped us. We've gotten better.
"But I think a big thing (in) winning consecutive games … you've got to be able to score the basketball at some point. And you've got to be able to use your defense hopefully to create you some offense at times, but you're going to have to execute and you're going to have to make some shots. We obviously have gone through some steady droughts in our games where we haven't been able to get over the top."
Transitioning from defense to offense, and vice-versa, is always important against Michigan State, perennially one of the nation's best running teams.
"I think that's going to be a key in this game," Miller said. 'Obviously Michigan State's transition game is great. They're as fast a playing team as there is in this league. They go inside, they can play outside, and we're going to have to be able to get back and deal with them a little bit. But hopefully our offense can stay with us a little bit."
And then there is the transition in program status Miller will continue working to conduct. The standard for which he aspires is lofty indeed.
Indiana, during 22 seasons of Knight's heyday through 1994, won .772 percent of its games (.729 in league play) with three NCAA championships, 10 Big Ten titles, five Final Fours, eight Elite Eights and 12 Sweet Sixteens.
Michigan State, in the last 22 seasons under Izzo, has a .736 winning percentage (.715 Big Ten) with one national title, eight regular-season conference championships (and five Big Ten Tournament titles), seven Final Fours, nine Elite Eights and 13 Sweet Sixteens.
Those are standards well worth bearing. Indiana will take the long view in that regard, over time. But Saturday, it meets the current standard-bearer.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Michigan State under Tom Izzo has, for the past quarter-century or so, become something akin to what Indiana was under Bob Knight.
Not just one of the Big Ten's basketball standard-bearers.
The primary standard-bearer.
Indiana fully intends to regain that status. That will take time.
But a season-sweep of the vaunted Spartans, last pulled off by IU's 2013 Big Ten champs, would seem a step in the right direction.
Coach Archie Miller's host Hoosiers will enter Saturday's 12 p.m. tipoff against No. 6-ranked MSU as underdogs, which was also their status heading into their 79-75 overtime win Feb. 2 over the Spartans at East Lansing.
Izzo, reviewing that initial outing against IU while meeting the media this week, delivered this succinct verdict:
"They out-played us."
And as with most Hall of Fame coaches, Izzo tends not to take that sort of thing lying down.
"When a team gets 20 offensive rebounds, you're getting out-played," Izzo continued. "When a team shoots 50 percent from 3-point range, when they usually shoot a lot lower, that means you got out-played."
So even coming off Sunday's rousing 77-70 win at arch-rival Michigan, Izzo doubtless found various ways to remind his Spartans about that first IU game during this week's five subsequent practice days.
Miller, in his second season at IU, has used that first Michigan State game as a different sort of reminder – what can happen when sustained effort is coupled with an unwavering focus on simply winning the game at-hand.
And he made the same point after the Hoosiers outlasted Wisconsin in double-overtime Tuesday, IU's first victory since that trip to MSU.
"They're using their energy level and their effort to give them confidence, which is what we had at one point in the season," said Miller of his Hoosiers, harkening back to December days when IU eked out enough close wins to fuel what became a 13-2 start to the season.
"We weren't always perfect on offense and we weren't shooting the ball well," Miller continued, "but one thing is we had a confidence about us that we can compete. And we can play hard. And we can defend. And we're doing that again."
The Hoosiers did it much of the time last month between their wins over MSU and Wisconsin, but kept ending up on the wrong side of very close scores against Iowa (twice), Ohio State and Purdue.
That changed against Wisconsin. And Indiana needs to follow suit Saturday, and through the end of the regular season and into the Big Ten Tournament, to maintain hopes for a NCAA tournament bid.
Michigan State (23-5 overall, 14-3 Big Ten), headed for its 22nd straight NCAA tourney appearance, is playing for a conference championship.
The Spartans are currently tied with Purdue atop the league standings, both a half-game up on Michigan in the loss column.
"We're in a better situation than most teams, because we're playing for something," junior point guard Cassius Winston told the Detroit Free Press after Thursday's practice. "It's easier to get up for a game when it's for a championship."
Winston is a big reason MSU is a title contender again this season.
Tuesday saw Winston named the Naismith Trophy Men's National Player of the Week after he averaged 27.5 points and 8.0 assists in the previous week's wins over Rutgers and Michigan.
For the season, Winston leads MSU's scoring with a 19.2 average. He also leads in steals with 32. He's shooting 47 percent from the field (43 percent from 3-point range) and 83 percent at the foul line. He's supplied 208 assists against just 79 turnovers.
"Cassius Winston right now, if it ended today, would arguably be the Big Ten Player of the Year," Miller said Friday. "He's had that type of impact on their team and what he does for them.
"Xavier Tillman and Kenny Goins are doing a fantastic job with Nick Ward going out of the lineup. Those guys have really stepped up and they're getting great shooting and great contributions from their perimeter guys as well.
"They are an excellent team and have been all season. They've dealt with adversity with their top couple guys being out and they still seem to, obviously, fit the mold of a championship type of team. They've got a lot of guys doing a lot of good things."
Ward, a 6-9 junior powerhouse inside, is currently out indefinitely with a hairline fracture in his hand. He was averaging 15.1 points and 6.7 boards through 26 games. The Spartans lost his classmate, another 15-point scorer, when 6-5 Josh Langford went out for the season in December with a stress-fracture in his foot.
More recent MSU maladies have included Kyle Ahrens' iffy back and Matt McQuaid slightly spraining an ankle in practice this week. Izzo indicated Thursday he hopes both will be available.
Indiana (14-14, 5-12) is one of the few teams that could actually top the Spartans when it comes to injury woes this season, but the Hoosiers are now probably has healthy as they've been since December.
IU freshman point guard Rob Phinisee, for example, seems to be hitting his stride again after a concussion cost him almost a month.
Phinisee had 11 points, four rebounds, four assists, zero turnovers and three steals Tuesday against Wisconsin, on the heels of 13 points, seven rebounds and four steals in the OT loss at Iowa.
"He's definitely playing the best that he's played since pre-injury," Miller said of Phinisee. "It took him obviously a good while to get his rhythm back. He lost confidence. He lost conditioning. But he's played his way through it, and I think he's as healthy as he's been all year.
"He's really, really playing an outstanding game defensively for us right now. He's our best perimeter defender by far. I think offensively he's starting to get a lot more aggressive. You're seeing him get in transition to the basket. You're seeing him get fouled a little bit more. I don't think he's afraid, right now, to take shots."
The Hoosiers have also benefited from the re-emergence of 6-10 junior De'Ron Davis, which really began in the first MSU game after he missed most of January to an ankle injury.
"De'Ron … since he came back for that first Michigan State game, where he's been healthy … he's been able to give us a presence inside," Miller said. "We can throw him the ball. He gives us another guy on the offensive glass that can get us second shots.
"Defensively he's the biggest body that we have, so he's able to kind of hang in there at times in between him and the rim, and he's been able to play longer minutes, which has helped our depth."
So has the emergence of redshirt-freshman forward Race Thompson, whose severe concussion cost him 24 games entirely this season before he again saw action in the last three.
Thompson played 22 minutes in relief of Davis and a foul-plagued Juwan Morgan against Wisconsin, snaring seven rebounds and defending senior Badger star Ethan Happ down low.
"Race, it's a credit to him," Miller said. "It's a credit to who he is. He's a worker. He has a year under his belt (as a redshirt), which helps him that he's not completely learning on the run.
"The fact that he was able to get in there the other night and sustain it, and compete and play, just speaks volumes about who he is as a competitor and also what he brings to the table in terms of a (being) team guy. But I thought he did as good a job as any in the game defensively for us."
The Hoosiers got another splendid performance from freshman winger Romeo Langford, who scored 22 points and hit the game-winner against Wisconsin in the final second of OT. And Justin Smith, with 12 points and six boards, probably had his best showing since posting a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds in the win at Michigan State.
Defensively, IU held Wisconsin to .391 shooting from the field (.273 from 3-point range).
"We've gotten better – especially defensively, we've gotten better," Miller said of his team in February. "I think that … one thing our team has tried to do here in our recent two, three weeks, is we've really tried to raise our level in terms of how hard we're playing, how committed we are to doing the little things, and it's helped us. We've gotten better.
"But I think a big thing (in) winning consecutive games … you've got to be able to score the basketball at some point. And you've got to be able to use your defense hopefully to create you some offense at times, but you're going to have to execute and you're going to have to make some shots. We obviously have gone through some steady droughts in our games where we haven't been able to get over the top."
Transitioning from defense to offense, and vice-versa, is always important against Michigan State, perennially one of the nation's best running teams.
"I think that's going to be a key in this game," Miller said. 'Obviously Michigan State's transition game is great. They're as fast a playing team as there is in this league. They go inside, they can play outside, and we're going to have to be able to get back and deal with them a little bit. But hopefully our offense can stay with us a little bit."
And then there is the transition in program status Miller will continue working to conduct. The standard for which he aspires is lofty indeed.
Indiana, during 22 seasons of Knight's heyday through 1994, won .772 percent of its games (.729 in league play) with three NCAA championships, 10 Big Ten titles, five Final Fours, eight Elite Eights and 12 Sweet Sixteens.
Michigan State, in the last 22 seasons under Izzo, has a .736 winning percentage (.715 Big Ten) with one national title, eight regular-season conference championships (and five Big Ten Tournament titles), seven Final Fours, nine Elite Eights and 13 Sweet Sixteens.
Those are standards well worth bearing. Indiana will take the long view in that regard, over time. But Saturday, it meets the current standard-bearer.
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