The Spartan Nation Basketball Weekly

 What’s the Offense, Spartans? The Spartan Offense has been a bit up and down through the 2010-2011 season thus far. Before the year, there was talk of a

 

What’s the Offense, Spartans?

The Spartan Offense has been a bit up and down through the 2010-2011 season thus far. Before the year, there was talk of a new and different looking “drag” option to the traditional MSU Offense. Yet the cornerstones of the Offense appear to remain the running game and variety of half-court sets.

Now that Big Ten play has begun, games will play out more “possession oriented” as the Big Ten looks again to the best conference in the country, and without a doubt is the conference that plays Defense on a night in-night out basis. Though conference play lends itself to more of a half court game, the Spartans will still look to run when they can. What that exactly the Big 10 schedule means for the “drag” element will be interesting to follow as the winter inches into spring.

“Well, we’re trying to go inside more…is one thing,” Tom Izzo told Spartan Nation, as the Big Ten schedule gets going. “I really wanted to run more than last year, and still trying, but with Kalin like he was (coming off the major Achilles injury)…that’s been a little bit more inconsistent than I’d like it.”

One Offensive difference Spartan Nation has taken notice of thus far, with some concern, has been the number of 3-poitners the likes of Kalin Lucas, Korie Lucious, and other uncharacteristic bombers (see Draymond Green) have taken. “We’re also taking more threes than we ever have, and I really like that,” Izzo said. Though results have been mixed overall, Izzo has been content with most of the shots taken from beyond the arc. “For all but two games, we’ve really shot the lights out and are shooting almost 40% from the “three.”

Yet, Izzo and the Spartans must recognize the importance of shot selection moving forward, and the potential danger that lurks if a team gets drunk on “three bombs.” “As they say…you live by the three, you die by the three. I thought both Texas and the first half of Minnesota, we jacked some threes without getting the ball inside,” Izzo admitted. “I thought that hurt us too.”

Without question, falling into a “three jack” mode can derail any decent Offensive chemistry and rhythm. When teams start flailing out threes, they usually do so at the expense of ball movement, discipline, shot selection, and successful execution. This team cannot afford that scenario to play itself out this year. This team simply isn’t good enough to overcome it.

They must recognize, accept, and then execute in the half court what the Spartan Offense traditionally does best: work the ball from inside-out to get a good look. Spartan Nation should hope and plead that this team avoids falling victim to the seductive spell of jacking threes from all across the arc, and instead works the ball around and take threes where the naturally come about.

“We’re trying to find that happy medium, is still where we’re working, and as we get Lucas better and better…our running game…I think will get better and better,” Izzo concluded. If there were some kind of Basketball Yoda, he’d probably tell this team, “know yourself, trust yourself, and play within yourself.”

Will Chemistry Make the Ultimate Difference?

You could argue that “chemistry” is the difference maker between under achieving and over achieving College Basketball team. Take a decent talent with great chemistry, and you’ll have an overachiever playing for Championships. But show me a team with great talent, and I’ll show you a team of frustration, disappointment, and underachievement.

We’ve seen much more of the former under Tom Izzo at Michigan State, which fans can take great encouragement from. But we have probably also seen the latter on an occasion or two, enough that it should be recognizable to Spartan Nation as the primary threat to this 2011 team.

“Nine out of ten times to win big, you have to have chemistry and leadership,” Izzo explained. The six-time Final Four Head Coach doesn’t think thisteam yet understands the type of chemistry it needs to reach its potential, but also recognizes this team is a bit different than the past two.

“I think sometimes you win different ways,” Izzo explained. “We’ve really had three different kinds of teams from a standpoint that two years ago, when we had Travis Walton, we had a bona fide leader at the Guard position, and then last year we kinda handed that over to Draymond Green more, but it’s a little harder when it’s not your Quarterback.”

Green still appears to be the primarily leader on this team, but there’s little question whether he is the Quarterback. That role should stick with the guy running the show from the back court, Kalin Lucas, or as Izzo put it last year, the “straw that stirs the drink.”

Lucas and Green are both two-time, back to back Final Four players. Unless they can come together on the court and in the locker room to lead this team more effectively and cohesively, this team will fail to produce that chemistry needed to compete for Championships. The 2011 team could very well be added next to 2006 bunch on the short list of “big disappointments” of the Tom Izzo era.

Spartan Nation hopes the players realize that fact now too, and work on it with great urgency because this 2011 season is going to start hanging in the balance beginning next Tuesday night when the Spartans host their biggest basketball rival of all, the pesky Wisconsin Badgers and good ole’ Bo Ryan.

The Spot Up 3: Three Quick Points to Ponder

1. Michigan State Guards need to lead the way in terms of shot selection. You can’t have your floor leaders taking bad or dumb shots and expect that not to trickle down to the rest of the team. If you’re not sure whether it’s a good shot, it’s probably not. So don’t take it, and run the Offense!
2. I love the idea of the Champions Classic (three year round robin between Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, and Michigan State beginning in ‘11). I’m even more excited that the event comes to Atlanta in 2012 (with MSU taking on Kansas), but someone needs to get that event out of the Georgia Dome. The games are scheduled on a Tuesday in Mid-November, not on a weekend in College Basketball’s prime season. Unless you want to see 50,000 empty seats in a giant hollow dome, move the games to the basketball appropriate Phillips Arena, which still holds around 20,000, and makes a much better venue for such a great night of heavy weight battles.
3. What happened to North Carolina Basketball? I know they lost an All-Time Heel in Tyler Hansbrough and a handful of other NBA picks a couple years ago, but it’s North Carolina! Since they beat MSU last December 1st, again looking like a team with Final Four game, the Carolina Blue train has gone far off the tracks. Carolina finished NIT runners up last year, and sit today at 10-4, outside the Top 25, and realistically threatening to miss the Big Dance for a second straight year. I’m going out on a very obvious limb here in assuming the Heels had bad chemistry and didn’t like Roy Williams very much as last year went on. If that’s not corrected this winter, could UNC fans start barking out loud at their own Huckleberry Hound Roy?

*Interact with Jonathan on Twitter @JPSpartan or inside the Phalanx Forum