(Chitownblue has been putting together great Big 10 Hoop posts so far this year. I have not been doing any basketball writing. Until this post. I feel rusty talking about hoops, so bear with me, HALOL)
For the first time since 1998, Michigan and Michigan State meet on the hardwood as ranked opponents. It’s been a long time. But, for most of the 1980s and 1990s matches with both in the rankings were fairly regular from the Joubert/Skiles rivalry to the winter of 1990 when Michigan was defending national champs while MSU streaked to the Big 10 title behind Steve Smith to those games in the early days of the Izzo tenure/final days of the Steve Fisher tenure. Michigan Hoops has been in the wilderness, but John Beilein seems to have led them out of the forest and back into NCAA relevancy. In some ways, tonight’s game is a must win for both sides. Michigan State needs the win to keep its early lead in the Big 1o race and stay ahead of Ohio State with the first of two matches with the Buckeyes looMing still three weeks out in the distance. As for Michigan, they dont want that third league loss and fall too far off the lead pack. But a loss tonight really sets up the chance for a protracted losing streak. Coming in off a defeat at Iowa, the Wolverines face a stretch after tonight that includes five road games in six starts, including stops at Arkansas, Purdue, Ohio State and a rematch in East Lansing against the Spartans. The Chicken Little in me wonders if a loss tonight wont be part of something akin to a 5-game skid and losses in six of seven. If so, look for the Wolverines, despite such heady preseason expectations, to be on the wrong side of the bubble by early February. A win tonight would give them immeasurable breathing room should the upcoming three weeks be short on victories. It’s a rivalry game. Get your talking points straight. Before our prediction, lets take a look at the protagonists this evening.
MICHIGAN STATE AT MICHIGAN, 7:00, ESPN. LINES, MSU -2, 0/U 132
What a difference a year makes for Michigan State. A year ago, the Spartans season devolved into a disaster, at least by modern day, Tom Izzo Era standards up in East Lansing. They dropped to .500 in league play, were bounced in ugly fashion in the first round of the NCAAs by UCLA and pretty much never looked like a cohesive basketball team for much of the season. This year? They look primed to return to the top of the Big 10 standings and rediscover their famous March Mojo. A year ago, the Spartans had the 62nd and 30th offensive and defensive rated efficiency teams in the land per KenPom. This season, they’re 7th and 9th, one of a few teams ranked in the top-10 in efficiency on both ends of the floor. A year ago their offensive EFG% was 190th in the land. This season, they’re sharpshooters by comparison, ranking 48th in the country. In 2010-11, their defensive EFG% was 112th in the nation, while this year their EFG% on D is 23rd nationally. They’re a little bit better at shooting the 3-ball this year, but the biggest gains have been their 2-point field goal marksmanship having improved from 46.7% and 214th in the land a season ago to 52%, 48th in the country this year.
I’m sure we can dig up a bunch more hard core numbers to further back the on-court improvement, but I dont think any of that even matters. I think there is a chemistry difference between the two squads, and that’s been the biggest factor behind this year’s Green and White Renaissance. Last year’s club was caught up in their individual games, their pro prospects and never seemed to be on the same page with Izzo. The coach kicked Korrie Luscious off the team, but he was popular among his teammates. Lets just put it this way, whats the Over/Under on number of times last winter, post Luscious expulsion, that the players with Korrie in tow, got together, passed a joint around a circle and bitched about their asshole head coach. Whatever you’re setting the number at, I’m taking the Over. All of those guys are gone, replaced by fresh faces or holdovers with larger roles. And its amazing what can be accomplished when coaches and players like each other. I know this aint twitter, but that deserves a #justsayin’.
As for the actual players, Draymond Green is putting in an All Big 10 First Team caliber performance. He’s avergaing 15.8 points per game and 10.1 boards. He’s had 10 double-doubles this season, including three in a row coming into tonight. He’s had his own leadership aneurysm, his head coach is so in love, he calls him by cute nicknames like Day Day and, by his example, this team’s performance has done a 180 from last year. His frontcourt play has been backed up by a stellar guard unit. Keith Appling, Brandon Wood and Travis Trice arent as explosive scorers as last year’s guards were, but they’re more efficient, play within themselves and the game circumstances a bit better and turn the ball over less. It might not be as star studded, but this backcourt is better than a year ago. I say that as a big Kailon Lucas fan, too. Wood, the transfer from Valpo is such a smart player and never takes a bad shot. Appling is taking a major leap his sophomore year, showcasing why he had such hot recruiting bonafides coming out of Detroit’s Pershing High. With eight players netting at least 18 minutes a game, the Spartans are a deepish team and Izzo, unlike a year ago, has a lot of different options in his coaching bag if Plan A isnt working. Its all added up to being back in the Big 10 Championship mix.
In the other corner are the Michigan Wolverines. Rather than saying what a difference a year makes, like we did for MSU, it is more accurate to just say, holy hell what a year-long stretch its been for Michigan. It’s just shy of a year to the day that the Wolverines sprung an unlikely upset of MSU at the Breslin Center. At the time, it looked like a nice, rather unsustainable win, a bright spot in an otherwise down year. Michigan was 1-6 in league play and on a 6-game losing streak entering that game. The win was more than just a bright spot, however. It propelled Michigan on a run the second half of the Big 10 season, which included a second win over MSU and an eventual NCAA tournament bid where they rolled Tennesssee in round one and a near upset of Duke in round two. Despite losing Darius Morris to the NBA, the program seemingly has maintained that momentum. They’ve been in the top-20 all season long and with their 14-3 record this season, the Wolverines are an amazing 24-8 since that win at the Breslin Center last January.
Maybe that win wasnt sustainable, but it sure as heck turned this program around. With Tim Hardaway Jr and Trey Burke, they have a really good Big 10 backcourt, whose ceiling is somewhere in the great territory. Zack Novak is, well, Zach Novak, one of the few Big 
10 players who can dominate a game without denting much in the boxscore. He needs to make at least 5 plays tonight that wont show up in the boxscore for Michigan to pull out the win. The Wolverines are 20th in the nation in EFG% and its the best shooting bunch during Beilein’s tenure at Michigan. Michigan is 6th nationally in 2-point field goals. They dont turn the ball over and despite their lack of size are really strong on the defensive glass. Novak and Stu Douglass are the only senior contributers and with a top-10 recruiting class hitting campus next year, highlighted by the #1 recruit in the land Mitch McGary, Michigan is finally becoming a basketball school again and they are hell bent on extending their winning streak over Michigan State to three games.
So, what happens? Michigan needs to shoot the ball better than they have recently if they want to win. It might be Beilein’s best shooting team at Michigan, but they are lodged in a major shooting slump right now. They’re only shooting 36.7% in their last 3 games and their 3-point shooting has been woeful pretty much the whole Big 10 season so far making just 29.6% of their treys during the first third of the conference season. The main culprit has been Hardaway Jr. He’s had some stinker games shooting the ball recently, barely shooting above a 30% clip the last 5 games. The other issue they’ve had in recent games has been strategic foul trouble. Burke and Novak have been glued to the bench in recent games thanks to first half whistles going against them. As for MSU, there really havent been too many chinks in the armor until Northwestern snapped their 15-game winning streak over the weekend. They looked vulnerable on D for the first time all season and the Cats diced them up with back door-type cuts all day long.
A year after being notorious money burners, State is 10-5 against the spread this season. But, Michigan is 30-14 ATS since the beginning of last season and are a respectable 8-6 ATS this season. But, they’ve failed against the number in their last two starts. Beilein’s team rarely drops three games in a row ATS, they’re 36-17 ATS vs winning teams and on a 15-6 ATS run at home. Everything about MSU is so much better this year than a year ago, while Michigan, despite being in a better position thisear, hasnt really reached their potential this year. On a nuetral floor and certainly up in Breslin, I think this would be a pretty easy Spartan win. In Ann Arbor, I think Michigan sneaks out a tightly contested win this evening. In Crisler Arena, I think home cooking keeps Michigan out of the foul trouble they’ve had recently and Hardaway Jr rediscovers, at least for a night, the HAM that made him one of the Big 10′s most explosive scorers. He makes a series of clutch buckets in the second half and Burke salts the game away at the line in a 66-62 Michigan win.
The Pick: Michigan +2
