Michigan State basketball suffered a painful loss in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament on Friday, falling to Ohio State 68-58 in Chicago.
Ohio State will continue their historic run in the Big Ten Tournament after a rough year for the Buckeyes, and MSU will attempt to lick their wounds and get ready for the NCAA Tournament.
The story of this game was all about Ohio State’s defense, which cooled off Michigan State’s hot shooting. While it has been a great year for the Spartans offensively, they have really struggled with their interior scoring, lacking the post presence Tom Izzo usually has in his lineups. The Buckeyes played Tyson Walker and Jaden Akins extremely tight and forced MSU to have to beat them inside, and the Spartans weren’t up to the task.
Tyson Walker, who has been unconscious from the field of late, only attempted four threes on the day and only made one, with an Ohio State defender seemingly always on his hip. Jaden Akins also could only get up two three-point attempts and missed both.
While you can’t blame this game on any one player, the Spartans did unfortunately get nothing from Malik Hall, who has not looked like the same player since going down with injury this season. He was -22 on the day and didn’t make a single field goal in 23 minutes of play, despite multiple good looks.
A.J. Hoggard also had a rough day, despite coming on a little bit towards the end of the game. He went 4-for-12 from the field for 10 points and looked mentally checked out for most of the game until the end.
This was a rough one for MSU, but Ohio State was playing insane defense and hitting shots that most teams usually wouldn’t. I don’t think MSU fans should be too discouraged about their NCAA tournament chances because of this one, as Izzo will have plenty of time to adjust before the tournament starts.
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