Spartans unable to overcome Memphis, 92-74

Very disappointing to see Neitzel go out like that. I was one to think Memphis was highly overrated, guess they proved me wrong. Never have I been embarrassed to me a Michigan State fan, can’t win when Morgan, Neitzel, and Lucas have horrible games.

Good to see Suton and Allen have good games! Hopefully they, Morgan and other freshman, let this game sink in and never let it happen again.

i think they did a good job..those memphis players are huge compared to ours..good job green eventhough you went out like that..second half wasnt as bad as the first.

I can’t believe a run to the Sweet Sixteen has people griping and calling for Izzo’s head. What do you expect, a national championship every year? MSU is a great school with a great basketball team and an up-and-coming, soon-to-be-great football team, but it has some of the whiniest, most fickle fans I’ve ever heard from.

Darth Tom nailed it. NCAA Basketball is one of the most competitive sports there is. Top talent is recruited by so many teams and every year there are teams that have a legitimate chance to win it all that are not perennial powers like UNC, UCLA & Duke. Davidson College is in the elite eight this year! Memphis is a great team this year and State just got beat. Nevertheless, The Spartans are one of the Top 16 teams in the country, again. Next year we will be an even stronger team. 2007-8 was a good year for us. It wasn’t great, but your not going to be in the final four every year.

Are you serious blaming Izzo? Perhaps you are an LCC student and not enrolled in MSU.

We came out a bit flat with jitters; true.

However, Elvis came out very strong. Had we been on our game, it would have been tough to compete when you are giving up 18 inches to the opponent.

It’s not Izzo’s fault. He is the best thing that has happened to the campus since allowing kegs on Munn. Let’s not take him away like they did the kegs!

It’s not Drew’s fault. He does not run the point or penetrate. He’s a shooting guard. He was guarded by a quick Elvis who was 2 feet taller than him. What was he suppose to do?

It wasn’t about MSU playing poorly. It’s about Memphis clicking on all cylinders proving their season.

Give the boys credit for working and getting as far as they did. This wasn’t the team and this wasn’t the year. Look ahead at Allen, Lucas and Suton. Great things on the horizon…

I am very dissapointed in the game last night, and i think the majority of blame from the game should be put on izzo’s shoulders. don’t get me wrong, i am not calling for his head or anything, i just think he did a very poor job gameplanning for this game. i heard tons of people before this game preach about how izzo and 5 days of planning should be unbeatable. how does 2nd team all big ten Raymar Morgan only get one shot in the first half? why do we run man-to-man defense the whole game while derrick rose runs circles on anyone who is covering him? it seemed like memphis knew everything we were going to do. they pick off passes and went for open highlight-reel dunks.

we here at state like to think that we have an elite level basketball team and games like this are just frustrating. i am proud of the team (and coach) for a solid season and i am definatly looking forward for next year! think about the lineup… lucas,allan,morgan, top 10 incoming freak freshman delvon roe, and a greatly improving suton…. mmmmmm

Sorry Spartan Fans. I didn’t realize that I could call time outs during huge Memphis runs. I also didn’t realize that Goran Suton and Raymar Morgan can’t block out. I also didn’t think that playing three point guards along with Suton and Morgan would hurt us. Even though every time I did it in the Big Ten tournament and the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament it always lead to a run for the opponent because we couldn’t rebound. I guess I just couldn’t see it. I apologize for not playing a bigger lineup. I should have limited myself to less than 3 point guards on the floor at the same time. I just didn’t realize how stupid it was. Sorry!

WE lost the game by a lack of effort in the first half but the officials facilitated the memphis run that lead to our demise. I really don’t believe in the integrity in organized sports, and i think this year the NCAA made it up in their mind that they WANTED ALL 1 seeds in the final four. If anything i think the age limit is hurting college basketball, because all you have are 5 star recruiting teams(memphis,North Carolina,etc) recruting players who are better than the college players they play against, and then all the players do is leave the program after one year. UNC and teams like that have a market on talent because they recruit so many kids who just want to play college one year to go pro.Great coaches like izzo or rick pitino for the most part get kids who want to get better at the game. I would hate for something as great the march madness to become predictable because of the same old schools getting the best recruits.(i.e. the womens tournament) Thats the nature of the beast and im still looking forward to next year.
AS to the spartan team: You guys pissed me off all year, but i must say I thank all of you for the memories you gave me doing the tournament run to the sweet sixteen. SUTON is a great basketball player and i must say I am totally impressed with his game.
KEYS TO next year: I would really like to see us kill this uptempo style of basketball…We haven’t had and explosive player to run the break in two year or three years. LETS Start breaking people down in the half court and use our rebounding presence and defense to facilitate the fast break.
NEED FOR THE FRONTCOURT TO STEP up.: SUTON impressed me, but im afraid gray, ibok,and herzog won’t be much of a factor next year. We will be relying on delvon roe alot. RAymar Morgan has to stop gettin in foul trouble. Quit crying to the refs, finsish strong at the basket and start dunking the ball when he gets down low.
Guard Play was pretty consistent. I wish he could see what dhalman is all about. TRAVIS WALTON has to stop passing up open jumpshots and learn to consistently knock down a 10-15 footer.
IT WAS a great year fellas, we just have to retool.IZZO HAS TO RECRUIT BETTER BIG MEN TO REPLACE OUR SENIORS NEXT YEAR. Sweet sixteen 07-08!!! DUring my time here at msu we made it to a final four and a sweet sixteen. THat is more than alot of schools can say. I LOVE MSU and will continue to bleed green.

Sorry to the basketball fans…it truly is a sad loss, but GO ICERS!

man, why isn’t this huge front page news? every other damn thing the basketball team does certainly is. and no, I’m not a UofM, I just don’t understand why everyone gets so worked up about our lousy basketball team. I thought that it was supposed to be “our sport.”

This blind Izzo loyalty is silly. His plays are utterly predictable, which led to a lot of the turnovers last night. His teams of late have been gloriously inconsistent, which spells bad coaching. And hasn’t Michigan won more road games in the Big 10 than we have over the last three years?

That’s not an elite program, folks. That’s a mediocre one.

Memphis played well, and they shot decently at the charity stripe.
I think our players freaked out when Memphis came out running and we weren’t able to recover.

Memphis just played a better game. Just because of one bad game Izzo shouldn’t criticized so severely. He still has an outstanding record in the tournament, had is 300th win this season and has built this program to what it is, everyone has an off day.

Next year the players will be haunted by conlusion of the bigten tourney and the NCAA tourney, which will drive Izzo (Like Izzo’s 100 free throws a day)and all his players. It will only strengthen the players he coaches.

Give them a break. It was a rough day for all Spartans. But we can all stay focused on our Hockey Team and suport them in the tournament.

Go Green! Go White! Go State!

Julius—You make some good points, but your first post about the fact that Izzo needs to slow the offense down is a joke. If you even bothered to watch the first half of the Big Ten games, you would have realized that the reason that we were losing to sub-par teams (i.e. Penn State and Iowa) is because Izzo had subplanted his slow-down offense with Walton at the point, creeping the ball up court and running weak back-door cuts for Neitzel, which, even if he is an All-American can be defended by any Division I caliber player. You say we have no talented recruits, yet I see a T.J. Ford type point guard in Lucas, an unbelievably athletic and versatile swing man in Allen, and a potential Freshman of the Year in Delvon Roe coming in to mop up the paint next year. Not to mention Morgan and Suton returning. Please do not say that Izzo cannot bring in talent, because if he can’t then the Final Four that you and I experienced in our time at MSU would never have happened. The Final Four team of 2005 had no star player, Allen Anderson can barely stay active for the Bobcats, so don’t tell me that Izzo doesn’t know how to coach or recruit players to fit his offense. Memphis is a great team and yes Izzo made a mistake in thinking his uber-athletic lineup could play man, but I do recall Texas playing zone against them to no avail as well. This loss was a great building-block for this program. Coach Izzo is a fine x’s and o’s coach who will never put a fleeting lineup on the court, because that would not be good enough for him, and certainly not good enough for you or I.

What we need is more NBA Talent,

Look at the last 3 national champions (Fla, Fla, UNC) you know what they all had in common? THREE Players going in the top 10 of the NBA each. At this rate Spartans are lucky if Raymar gets drafted in the 2nd round. Lucas could be a late first rounder, but we need BALLERS! The problem (as many of you know) is that after Randolph, Richardson and Taylor left early (‘01 I believe it was?) Izzo got PISSED and said “F these clowns, I’m only getting four year players” but if you look at every national championship (how about the financed five from 20years ago, although they never won an NC) they all have MAD NBA talent. I mean their whole starting line-up is ready to go pro-UCLA/UNC/Kansas/Memphis all have this. This year (allen, lucas, summers) and next year (green, locious and especially roe) help out but Izzo needs to heavy recruit the feature Rose/Beasley/Durant/Oden/LBJ’s(yes I know he didn’t go to college and would have gone to OSU) but when Izzo hears a player is a phenomenal talent and will be ‘one and done’ he says PASS and looks for a gumpy white kid from the suburbs who will play five years. You know what that gets you? Getting your ass beat in the sweet 16 by a future NBA team…...thats what it gets you…...thats on Izzo but I completely disagree he’s a bad coach, he just recruits the wrong players (not good ones) for the wrong reasons (that they will stay 5 years)