Minnesota knocks MSU out of Big Ten Tournament in OT
Junior guard Kalin Lucas is fouled by Minnesota forward Colton Iverson as he goes up for a layup. Lucas’ 18 points weren’t enough to carry the Spartans in their 72-67 defeat to the Golden Gophers on Friday night at Conseco Fieldhouse in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis.
Tweet
Indianapolis – With 20 seconds left to play in overtime, sophomore forward Draymond Green missed a free throw, turned and yelled in frustration, epitomizing No. 3 seed MSU’s 72-67 defeat against No. 6 seed Minnesota on Friday night in the quarterfinals of the men’s Big Ten Tournament.
The Spartans went 18-for-34 from the free-throw line in the game, including a 5-for-12 performance in overtime.
“In fairness to our 18-of-34 from the line, that’s never happened,” MSU head coach Tom Izzo said. “It’s my fault because I ran these guys into the ground.”
Green reached his seventh double-double of the season by scoring 10 points and grabbing 11 rebounds but the 69 percent free-throw shooter only went 2-for-6 from the charity stripe.
On a day where the Big Ten Tournament saw every game go down to the wire, the fact that MSU reached overtime couldn’t have been much of a surprise. MSU was down by as many as 10 points with 8:20 to play in the game but clawed back to tie the game with less than one minute to play.
Gallery: Big Ten Tournament ...
“That was a very hard-fought, physical game,” Minnesota head coach Tubby Smith said. “But you expect that in tournament play, and I guess (against a) very well-coached and well-disciplined Tom Izzo team. We haven’t had much luck against them, but we were finally able to pull out a win, and we made some great plays down the stretch to get the win.”
The Golden Gophers’ three leading scorers, guard Devoe Joseph (17 points), guard Blake Hoffarber (14) and center Colton Iverson (12), all scored above their season averages.
Joseph didn’t score in the first half but scored eight points in the overtime session, including a 3-point shot after MSU had taken a 58-55 lead.
“He did make some shots, but he put his team on his back and he carried them,” Green said of Joseph. “He hit some tough shots, but tough shots or not, you still have to defend them. He hit some tough shots, and he wasn’t doing that the first game we played them, nor was he doing it the second time we played them.”
Hoffarber was another player who stepped up for the Gophers. After scoring just 10 points and hitting one 3-point shot against MSU in their previous two meetings combined, Hoffarber scored 14 points and hit four 3-point shots on Friday.
Two of Hoffarber’s 3-pointers were in the face of uncontesting junior guard Durrell Summers. Summers only played 24 minutes and just eight in the second half.
Izzo said the absence of junior guard Chris Allen, who was suspended for violating team rules, hurt his team’s defensive performance.
“We just couldn’t guard, and Chris Allen has become our best defensive player,” Izzo said. “You know, the blame should go on, I guess, me and him there because I had to make a tough decision, and the problem when you make decisions is if you can just affect the player, it would be good.
“I just have trouble right now looking at Morgan and (senior guard Isaiah Dahlman) because I had to make a decision that affected them.”
Morgan scored a game-high 23 points and grabbed six rebounds. In the past five games, Morgan has averaged 17 points and nearly 10 rebounds per game.
Minnesota opened up a 50-40 lead with 8:20 to play before the Spartans came back. MSU finished the half on a 15-5 run to send the game into overtime.
In the overtime period, Morgan made an early lay-up and added a free-throw, clearly throwing the momentum in the Spartans’ corner. With his team teetering, Joseph hit a 3-point shot to tie the game and energize his team.
“I just think I was just very composed and I was just very excited to win the game,” Joseph said. “I wasn’t trying to put it in my hands, I was just trying to get the shots. I was in the zone to the point where I wasn’t really thinking too much. I was just playing basketball.”
After Joseph’s 3-pointer, Minnesota scored seven straight points and put the game out of reach.
The win snapped MSU’s eight-game winning streak over the Gophers, which dated back to 2006.
MSU hasn’t won the Big Ten Tournament since 2000. The Spartans will await their fate Sunday when the NCAA Tournament brackets are announced.
Izzo said he is going to “mix up” things headed into the NCAA Tournament but would center changes around the core of Morgan and Green.
“We have a lot of basketball we still have left to play,” Izzo said. “We’ve got a good team. It’s not a great team yet, but there’s a lot of good teams out there.”
Commentary
Add your $0.02, go to the comment form or follow the comment feed
MB
(03/13/10 12:17am)Report
Very disappointed. Really didn’t like how it seemed that there was only 4 legitimate scoring players on the floor at any one time (reference Kebler, Dahlman)
alum
(03/13/10 12:31am)Report
after ten years, can anyone really say they thought MSU was going to actually win this thing. sucks that raymar decided to pick now to play his best, but the guards mailed it in a month ago.
Poor MSU
(03/13/10 1:13am)Report
what do you expect? Pathetic academics to match pathetic athletics… thats the MSU way… has anyone seen how most MSU how alumni live? Broke losers!!
community college
(03/13/10 1:26am)Report
agreed, most MSU alumni are losers relative to other educated people. Its mainly because MSU admits anyone with a pulse, therefore they have a lot of dumb alumni…
Townsend
(03/13/10 1:31am)Report
Ah, a pathetic skunkbear/WalMart Wolvie jumps into the fray. Le’s see, overrated academics; more and more academicians in the know recognize U-M’s a grad school with giant classes and T.A.‘s (along w/ off campus living in a crappy A2 apt) that can’t match MSU’s undergrad oriented program on a goregeous campus — James Madison, Briggs, Education, RCAH, Honors, … U name it… and SPORTSWISE??? Wolvie shows what a total ignoramous he is while UM sports have sunk to total trash — UM hoops reached the Big Dance, er, how long ago, as Izzo’s Spartans have an annual reservation there… And football? Wolvie can’t even make a friggin’ bowl, of late, while MSU football has waltzed right by it… MSU lady hoops even kick your sorry azz.
Go home pathetic, skunkbear, wolvie and cry and your (flat) beer… Find something to do (like your usual jerking off) rather than exposing your sorry-ness by trying to stick your chest out on OUR board; got nuthin’ better to do, huh?
THIS BOARD’S FOR WINNERS… After we go at least to the Sweet 16 in the NCAAs, we’ll tune in to watch Wolvie bow out of the NIT… again…
Tom Izzo is being Outcoached!
(03/13/10 2:10am)Report
Terrible performance tonight…A couple answers I am looking for…
1. I need to know who this fraud Kalin Lucas is and what has he done with the real one?
2. Why does Tom REFUSE to call a timeout when teams go on 6-0, 8-0, 10-0 run? How about switching to a zone once in a while so they can’t lob it to a 7” players like Iverson when we have 6-6 Draymond Green guarding him.
3. We need to know SPECIFICALLY what Allen did to warrant a game suspension. Saying he is a bad teammate is not an acceptable answer. Especially when he is sitting on the bench while we have Kebler and Dahlman in.
4. Korie Lucious continues to play and throw pass after pass away while bigger guards just drive and shoot on him. He has taken 2 steps backwards this year and shouldn’t rely on him in the future. WHY IS HE IN THE GAME?
4. Are the Big Ten refs the SEC football refs of college basketball? Yet the anouncers always say these are the “best veteran officials”. Cmon ref selection committee..step it up!
newy
(03/13/10 2:28am)Report
it amazes me that people still manage to get tricked into arguments with trolls.
I think Izzo suspended allen just to throw this game. I mean in a span of less that 24 hours what could allen have done from being able to play in the michigan game to being suspended for this game. It really doesnt seem like it was all that serious if he was able to travel with the team and practice with them. I’m thinking izzo just sat down with his assistants and said i dont feel like wasting my time in indy this weekend, we could be at home practicing.
Townsend is a loser
(03/13/10 2:32am)Report
True, MSU alumni are pretty much low earning tools. Townsend good luck with that toilet paper you call an MSU degree (yes, yes, I’m sure you will claim you’re an Harvard Med Student or some 6 figure earner) but we all know you’re just another broke poor MSU loser who will amount to nothing like 99.99% of MSU grads. Townsend, if you actually had some scholastic merit you would not be a MSU student/alumni. Your a poor tool because you’re dumb basically. Just another MSU white trash loser.
SHUT UP
(03/13/10 3:07am)Report
Yes, we lost the game BLAH BLAH BLAH. We played a team fighting for their big dance ticket and lost without a starter, a scoring starter. NOT THE END OF THE WORLD. Everyone is so quick to hate on this team. What does winning the big ten tournament do? Do you realistically thought if IZZO wanted to try to win this thing he would have put in Pryzbylewski and ally-oop slamma jamma? (No disrespect to Dahlman, your senior moment made my heart melt, but you shouldn’t have played in this game). I don’t think winning the big ten is the goal here so let’s just back off of this team for a second.
I have so much respect for Kalin Lucas. At the end of that game he did not give up he stood in there made the steal and hit a three. He didn’t give up and he didn’t throw in the towel. He sent a message saying we aren’t dead just wait.
If this team can’t feed off of that then nothing will move them. Then we can swear off this team, but not before we let them finish this ride. Do you think Raymar Morgan who has been the second coming of a young Patrick Ewing is going to lie down in the tourney? Do you think Kalin is going to miss 2 straight free throws? We lost a good game tonight, but we didn’t lose the war. (I apologize for how cheesey that was but it fit so great.)
Kamm
(03/13/10 8:04am)Report
There’s such a substantial athleticism gap between the the Spartans and Minnesota that it’s embarrassing to lose this game. I can only guess that coach was trying to get some game experience in for Dahlmann, Kebler and Thornton because players like that shouldn’t be in a contest you plan to win. Players like Lucas, Summers and Roe ought to pay attention to college stars who bring it every game like John Wall or Evan Turner as that is what people of their ability are capable of. I feel sorry for coach Izzo having to lead a Magic 8-ball of a team like this, where you never no what’s going to show up.
TrollsBeGone
(03/13/10 12:05pm)Report
Troll posting from his mom’s basement at 3AM on a Saturday morning
MB2
(03/13/10 12:10pm)Report
Hahaha, this reminds me of something else, how funny!
mvt
(03/13/10 12:14pm)Report
This was indeed a painful game to watch.
One play in particular stood out for me. MSU gets a little steal and has a contested 2 on 1 going with Lucas handling and (gasp) Kebler along with him. Lucas drives deep down the left side of the lane and passes to an almost wide open Kebler who ………. trips over his own feet and fails to convert.
You have to wonder what goes through the minds of the players and coaches when they see that. Will Lucas ever pass to Kebler again ?
@Shut Up
(03/13/10 12:24pm)Report
Nicely stated comment, keep talking!
Something Jack would say
(03/13/10 1:01pm)Report
“How about we get together and talk about all of this over a Shorts Beer Kamm.”
Behave Yourself
(03/13/10 3:16pm)Report
Darko, you still have a ways to gooooo… Now say you’re sorry, come on now. (I even used the correct you’re not your, so smile!)
Really?
(03/13/10 3:19pm)Report
1) not only am I an msu alumni, but also a former athlete…I make 60k the first year out of college and am living quite well thank you
2) it seems to me that you are the loser commenting on another school’s news paper
Really Wrong
(03/13/10 4:23pm)Report
It seems like it isn’t asking too much for a person to be nice, now is it? And what ‘seems to me’ is that you are a brat at times and need someone brave enough to say so, so here I am. I know you better than you think! 60K your 1st year out of school, not bad:)
Being nice doesn't cost a penney:)
(03/13/10 5:37pm)Report
The benefits are priceless:)Okay Really, now smile!!
Disappointed
(03/13/10 5:43pm)Report
One and done…a major disappointment last night. The sign of good eladership is consistency. Unfortunately we’ve not seen that this year. Izzo needs to kick some booty, big time! No excuse for last night. The boys need to crank it up several notches to keep alive. GO GREEN.
Cult of Personality
(03/13/10 5:50pm)Report
Can we put in a nail in the coffin of the coach’s cult of personality now?
alum 2000
(03/13/10 7:15pm)Report
What did Summers do to be benched for so long? I don’t think Izzo give a flip about this tourney—he benched 2 of his best guards and pretty much played 6 players for at least the last 10 minutes. Maybe he’s trying to teach some last minute lessons for the big tourney. Defense wasn’t always horrible, so that’s a good sign, but the turnovers are going to kill them. If they don’t clean up both sides of the game I think they could be a 5/12 upset next weekend.
alum
(03/13/10 8:20pm)Report
seeing two of purdues starters get injured today, in what amounted to a meaningless game, kind of took the sting out of this loss. A healthy rested team, beats winning this tournament.
Welcome to WalMart... GO BLUE
(03/18/10 10:22am)Report
I love seeing Michigan fans run up on a Spartan Basketball board. My response will be limited to basketball… Rumor has it a De La Salle v U of M basketball game is being scheduled this march. However DLS has been unable to adhere to U of M’s requests because they actually HAVE THE ABILITY to play basketball in March. Waive Manny good bye. You guys are a joke.
Next time I stop at Walmart or Meijers, Ill say hi to your fan base.