WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Michigan State’s men’s basketball team is flirting with something more perilous than the NCAA tournament bubble:
Regret.
That’s the fight now. Forget a disappointed fan base. They’ll move on next season regardless. MSU’s players, especially its veterans, have to make sure, at season’s end, they feel differently than they did Saturday night in the locker room after an 80-74 loss at Purdue.
They didn’t regret their effort against the Boilermakers. It’s the sense that if they had played as hard and with as much purpose as they did against Purdue every time out this season — including recently at home against Iowa and Ohio State — that their situation would be different. Beating Purdue was always going to be an unlikely uphill climb. The Spartans missed too many shots to win in West Lafayette. But they made enough to win just about everywhere else, if they fight like that.
“We’ve got to compete like that every game,” fifth-year senior Malik Hall said. “Shoot, if we compete like that, we probably aren’t in double-digit losses. We’re probably have five or six losses throughout the year. So really it’s just making sure we compete for the rest of year like how we did today.”
The Spartans might not achieve their dreams this season, but if their season ends because they didn’t attack a particular game with the ferocity required, they’ll regret it. Maybe instantly. Maybe three years from now on an off day between games in Istanbul.
For Hall, Tyson Walker and A.J. Hoggard especially, time is fleeting. What’s left is precious.
They’ll take the court at Breslin Center for what’s scheduled to be the final time Wednesday against Northwestern. No MSU senior class has played an extra home game in the NIT since 1997.
A night meant to celebrate them is also a must-win, in front of a crowd that has mixed feelings about them. Can’t worry about the crowd. This has got to be about them and how they want to feel about this season for the rest of their lives. There’s still a chance to avoid regret.
“I was pleased that we competed (at Purdue). I think if we had done that more in the last two weeks, we would have won three more games,” Tom Izzo said. “And that’s my fault. That falls on me. I wish I had an answer. But do I think we’re in a better place.”
Izzo might have more years to go — though not that many — and less confounding teams to coach, but he, too, has to make sure he gives this group a chance to squeeze everything possible out of the rest of their season, that he has no regrets. That means continuing to lean into the developing play of freshman Xavier Booker and, to some extent Coen Carr, when he goes after every rebound the way he did Saturday night.
MSU was 11 points better than Purdue in Booker’s 13 minutes Saturday night. Plus-minus is a flawed single-game stat, but it’s clear Booker gives the Spartans a little something they didn’t have most of this season and he changes the spacing offensively. Given that little else about this team is going to change much, Booker’s impact is worth exploring each and every night.
“We tried to go with Book on (Zach Edey),” Izzo said. “That wasn’t a good thing. Not his fault. But Book did a helluva job on some other things. We were trying to see if we could play (him and keep him off Edey).”
One game after Izzo played Booker 17 of the first 25 minutes and then not again for the final 15, as MSU’s lead against Ohio State slipped away, he played Booker seven different times Saturday night — including for a good chunk of the closing minutes — against a less-favorable matchup, no less. That’s exploring. That’s perhaps admitting regret from a few nights earlier. That’s wanting to win.
“I think bringing him in to go against Zach offensively,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said, “to spread the defense and knock those two 3s down — which obviously that’s our mismatch on the other end then, like that’s a little bit too much for (Booker) at this point. But he’s a talented kid.”
“I guarded (Edey) and tried my best,” Booker said, chuckling. “He’s big. He’s definitely bigger in person for sure.”
In some ways, with Booker, it’s a race against time to see if MSU can get his growth to run parallel to the most important games of the season. But he’s got time left, another year at least.
For some others on MSU’s team, only three more games are guaranteed — a massive home game against Northwestern on Wednesday, followed by a date at Indiana next Sunday and then a Big Ten tournament game the following Thursday that, depending how this next week goes, might also be critical.
The Spartans should be fine if they give what they did Saturday — even the Hoggard 0-for-7 shooting start. More important is that they leave the court exhausted and at peace with themselves.
MSU, at 17-12 and 9-9 in the Big Ten, is No. 22 in the NCAA’s NET rankings, climbing two spots Sunday after Saturday night’s competitive defeat No. 2 Purdue.
If you’re worried about the Spartans just getting in the field of 68, understand that no team with a NET as high as MSU’s has ever been left out. The highest ranked squad left home since the NET began as a tool used by the selection committee was No. 33 N.C. State in 2019. That year, six teams in the top 42 were snubbed. No team in the top 40 has been left out the last two seasons, though the No. 40-ranked team, both years, has. So keep that in mind.
Conversely, MSU in 2021 was one of the lowest-ranked NET teams to make it the tournament, with a ranking of 70. The Spartans had five Quad 1 wins that year (meaning top 30 wins at home, top 50 neutral site, top 75 on the road).
The highest ranked teams that have been left out of the NCAA tournament have lacked Quad 1 wins. MSU this year has four of them — Baylor (13), Illinois (15), Indiana State (29) and at Maryland (71). Two of those wins, however, could still fall out of Quad 1. MSU also doesn’t have any really bad losses, even if it doesn’t feel that way.
In other words, MSU isn’t safe, but the Spartans don’t have have to do anything extraordinary to get in. They’ve just got win at least one more game. Perhaps two.
Still, better not to tempt fate against a Northwestern team high in the Big Ten standings but not loved by the metrics, or on the road against an Indiana team going nowhere. Five straight losses — MSU has lost three straight now — would probably put the Spartans on the wrong side of the bubble heading into the Big Ten tournament and put in jeopardy an NCAA tournament streak that’s at 25 straight — the longest ever by a single coach.
You’ll catch some fans wondering if it might be best for the streak to end, asking if that wouldn’t reignite a fire under Izzo. The problem with that logic is that I don’t sense that fire to be gone and that streak is something that separates MSU, that, even in recent frustrating years, puts the Spartans in an elite class. Something that adds to Izzo’s mojo.
And for MSU’s players, the seniors especially — again, forget the fans — breaking that streak is not something they want as part of their legacy. That would only add to any potential regret.
“I just want to keep trying to win some games now,” Izzo said. “I do think if they got anything out of tonight … you know, I’ve got a good basketball team. I’m not saying it’s great. It’s good. We just can’t make these little mistakes and our seniors have got to play better. They just do. I’ve got to coach better, they’ve got to play better. And that’s the bottom line. And if they continue to compete like they did tonight, we’ll play better.”
RELATED: Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State’s 80-74 loss at Purdue
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU basketball is flirting with the NCAA tournament bubble. And regret
