Michigan State Basketball: What went wrong in loss to Wisconsin?

The Spartans had trouble containing D’Mitrik Trice

Entering Friday’s clash with Michigan State, Wisconsin’s D’Mitrik Trice had fairly solid numbers points-wise, but he was still looking for that breakout scoring performance that would give him the confidence he needed moving forward. His four most impressive outings statistically were against Loyola Chicago (when he totaled 17 points), Marquette (when he totaled 17 points), Arkansas- Pine Bluff (when he totaled 15 points), and Eastern Illinois (when he totaled 11 points).

As you can see, Trice toyed with a few 20-point performances, but couldn’t manage to reach that point total prior to Friday’s contest. Against Michigan State Trice finally joined the 20-point club, as he netted 29 points on 7-14 shooting from the field (50%), which included 11 made free throws in 15 attempts.

Trice torched Michigan State a few different ways on Friday, but his ability to take advantage of the Spartans’ inability to pay attention to detail, is what stood out to me the most. With about 12:30 remaining in the first half, Trice inbounded the ball to Nate Reuvers in the right corner, sprinted to go and retrieve the ball from him, and used the screen that was given to him by Reuvers to rise up, and release a lately contested three-pointer (that he knocked down).

Trice’s three-point jumper was contested at the last second because Aaron Henry (who was supposed to be guarding Trice) was too busy staring at Nate Reuvers after he received a chest pass from Trice, and trying to figure out what Reuvers’ next move was going to be. I think that because Henry was not facing Trice, he was caught off guard when Trice made the quick decision to dart toward Reuvers, and make a play immediately.

If Henry had taken the time to turn his head and glance at Trice a few times, he would have been able to sprint with Trice as he was heading toward his next destination (without bumping him off his spot), and helped out his teammate (Marcus Bingham Jr.) who was trying to defend two players at once.

I also want to point to a play that occurred nearly four minutes into the second half (when the Spartans obtained a 9-point lead). When Trice caught the ball on the left-wing, Micah Potter made his way over to Trice’s location to set a screen for him and quickly slipped it (but he was unable to make himself available to Trice, because of Julius Marble II’s quick recovery on the play).

As Potter was slipping the screen Trice proceeded to take three hard dribbles to his right, stop instantly before completing a between the legs dribble move, give his defender (who was Joshua Langford) a little shake to freeze him, and then drill a three-point jumper in his face.

Trice basically had a wide-open triple on that possession if you ask me because Langford was never able to get a hand up and throw off the timing of Trice’s shot. The main reason why Trice got the look that he wanted on that second-half possession, is because Langford didn’t raise either of his hands as soon as Trice was finished with his between the legs dribble move.

Typically, when a player crosses over from one side to another or puts the ball between his legs, he is looking to see if his defender is going to put a hand in his face so that he can’t rise up and shoot over the top of them.

I think that because Langford elected to keep both of his hands by his side, Trice was able to walk into a rhythm three, which helped spark Wisconsin’s crucial 11-2 run in half #2. Defensive mistakes like this helped Trice notch basket after basket on Friday, and while I am confident that the Spartans won’t have a ton of defensive lapses in the future, they certainly will need to take full advantage of their next film session with Tom Izzo (Michigan State’s head coach).