Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: Michigan State In Review
2/18/2018 12:35:00 PM | Men's Basketball
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
Now, quite implausibly (on so many levels), the 'Cats trail No. 2 Michigan State by two with under a minute remaining in their Saturday matinee at Allstate. Here it is ball out to the Spartans under the 'Cats basket, and despite pressure they do successfully inbound it to their star Miles Bridges. But quickly he is trapped on the sideline by Vic Law and Gavin Skelly, and hands are scraping for the ball, hands are grasping for the ball, hands are on the ball, and now there's a whistle from the official Gene Steratore.
A tie-up and that ball belongs to the 'Cats, whom the arrow favors. A foul and Bridges goes to the line for a one-and-one with 41.7 seconds left.
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The 'Cats entered this one with just eight scholarship players dressed and available for duty. The 'Cats played this one without a point guard, Bryant McIntosh out with a damaged right shoulder and Jordan Ash out with an injured knee. The 'Cats in this one encountered foul trouble, which for one four minute stretch left them battling the Spartans without a center on the floor, and called on Vic Law to play the full 40, which he did willfully against the baddest dudes in the Big Ten.
The script, then, hardly favored the 'Cats, yet a funny thing happened on their way to the slaughterhouse. Instead of tucking their their tails and succumbing meekly, they puffed out their collective chest, stared into the bully's eye, reared back and grabbed thunder and threw the mother of all haymakers. They got the game's first points just 14 seconds in on a Dererk Pardon dunk off a Law assist, and 60 seconds later Law dropped a three from the left wing.
Now, like some unexpected tsunami, they swept over the Spartans, leading by six at 14:19, leading by 14 at 11:08, leading by 22 at 7:50, finally leading by 27 at 4:18. "In the first half, we were cutting extremely hard. I think we knocked Michigan State back," Law would later say. "The first half we played with an energy level that was relentless. We were playing like a team. We were flying around, all five of us together. It's the first time in a long time all five of us have clicked together. It was just fun playing out there with each other."
"We were shooting the ball incredibly well. We were executing extremely well. We were moving the ball," said his coach, Chris Collins. "They're a really good defensive team when they can lock you in on a side and use their athletes and length. I thought early in the game the ball was moving. When we were fresh, the ball was moving and we were getting open shots. We were attacking."
They were attacking and putting up numbers that dazzled. Law, on the season a 37.1 percent three-point shooter, finished this first half four-of-seven from distance (57.1 percent) and with 18 points. Scottie Lindsey, on the season a 33.2 percent three-point shooter, finished it two-of-three from distance (66.6 percent) and with six points. Gavin Skelly, on the season a 41.2 three-point shooter, also finished it two-of-three from distance and with 11 points. That is what propelled the 'Cats to their lead, that and the grinding work of the young freshman Anthony Gaines, who played all of this half's 20 minutes and put up eight points while going four-of-six from the field.
"We don't give up 50 points in a half, or very seldom, and we did," Spartan coach Tom Izzo later lamented, thinking back to the 49-27 lead the 'Cats held at halftime. But.
"I didn't go off. I must be getting old," he would say when asked about his halftime speech. "I just told them how disappointed I was in their defense, how we did not guard the way you need to guard. I said we're going to guard better and chop this thing down in increments."
They did not do that immediately. Pardon, in fact, stretched his team's lead to 23 with a dunk at 18:50 of the second. But now came a 'Cat drought of biblical proportions; a drought where they missed 17 straight field goal attempts; a drought where they went more than 11 minutes without a point, more than 14 minutes without a field goal. "I don't know if they got cold, or if they got back to normal," Izzo would say about the abrupt change. "I thought they got a little tired. We just kept running different people at them. That's one of our plusses. We've got some depth. But we were locking down defensively. They didn't get many good looks in the second half."
"They ratcheted their intensity up a little bit, no question about that," said Collins. "Then we got a little bit winded, maybe, wearing down. . . . It's hard. Especially when you're a little winded as it is, it's hard. When you're tired and not scoring, it makes you a little more tired. We just ran into that in the second half."
"In the second half," said Law, "our offense got a little stagnant and we turned into more one-on-one players instead of moving the ball, kicking the ball out, playing as a team. We didn't match their energy in the second half."
The energy, in fact, belonged to the Spartans, who during the drought incrementally
did chop away at the 'Cats lead. They got it down to 10 at 11:19 and then, at 8:47, pulled into a tie at 53. They took their first lead of the day at 5:26 and looked poised to run away, but still the 'Cats refused to fold. They instead got some stops and now, still down just two, their next three possessions went like this. Gaines offered a little six-footer that rattled in-and-out, and Skelly missed an open three, and Pardon couldn't handle an entry pass down low from Law, the ball going out off him.
Moments later the Spartans inbounded it to Bridges, and the 'Cats sprang their trap, and Gene Steratore blew his whistle.
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The 'Cats, after going 18-of-30 (60 percent) in the first half, would go three-of-26 (11.5) in the second. The 'Cats, after going eight-of-13 on their three in the first half (61.5), would go one-of-10 in the second (10 percent). The 'Cats, after going for 49 points in the first half, would go for only 11 in the second. But still they were within two when Steratore blew his whistle and hit Gavin Skelly with his fifth foul. "It could have been a jump ball," Law later said when asked about this play. "Gene saw it as a foul, so it was a foul. I'm not going to say anything else. Gene thought it was a foul, it was a foul. You can't argue with him."
"I was kind of blocked off," Collins said of it. "We did exactly what we wanted to do. We trapped him. I thought we had our hand on the ball. Look. Gene's a great ref. I'm not going to dispute it. If he thought it was a foul, it was a foul. But those are the plays— they call a jump ball, it's our ball. We've got the last shot to win it."
Instead Bridges converted his one-and-one and soon enough this game was over, the Spartans winning by five. "We needed the win, don't get me wrong. But they deserved the win," Izzo later admitted. "They outplayed us for two-thirds of that game in every fashion."
"I thought our effort was worthy of winning," Chris Collins soon echoed. "We did a lot of good things. We just came up short. There's no question this one stings. There's no question this one stings."
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