Iowa (16) @ Michigan St (21) - 12/30/18

Shades

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East Lansing, MI - 1:00 PM ET
TV: ESPN2 (Eric Frede, Kara Lawson)

Video:
http://www.espn.com/watch/ (tvpli)

Audio:
http://www.spartansportsnetwork.com/modules.php?name=Pages&sp_id=1&m1=66

Live stats:
https://msuspartans.com/sidearmstats/wbball/summary



MSU is third in the nation and first in the Big Ten in assists to turnover ratio (1.56), as well as standing second in the country and tied for first in the league in assists per game (22.4).

Iowa is first in field goal percentage (.527) and free throw percentage (.798). The Hawkeyes are right behind the Spartans in scoring offense, scoring 84.7 ppg, compared to MSU's 85.6 ppg.

Iowa senior Megan Gustafson is nearing a milestone. With 2,094 points, she is just nine points away from breaking Ally Disterhoft's Iowa scoring record of 2,102 points that was set in 2017. Gustafson is first in the nation and the Big Ten in scoring, averaging 26.5 points per game. She is also the national leader in field goal percentage (.747) and field goals made (121). Gustafson is also second in the league in rebounds, averaging 12.5 rpg.
 

MSU getting punched in the mouth in the first quarter.

15-4 Iowa
 


Never mind....all tied up now at 19
 

23-23 end of first

Allen and Gustafson 10 pts ea

Is Lamke going to be able to defend Allen out at the the point line?
 


43-37 Iowa at the half

Gustafson with 21 pts, 7 reb, 1 ast
 

It's important to play ball-denial defense on Gustafson.
 


84-70 MSU final

Clouden (freshman guard) 27 pts, 4 reb, 5 ast, 2 stl
Allen (Oregon killer center) 20 pts, 17 reb, 3 ast, 2 blk

Gustafson 30 pts, 14 reb, 1 ast
 



In my opinion, MSU will have a good chance to finish second in the BIG this year, behind Maryland. The Spartans are very deep. With a slimmed-down and now more effective Allen and with a point guard Clouden who will contend for BIG freshman of the year, the Spartans are going to be tough to beat, especially when they get Colley going again as she comes back from her injury. (She didn't contribute much today in the win over Iowa.)
 

I watch a deep team like MSU and then I watch the Gophers and there's no comparison in bench talent. The Gophers Iron Five is going to have to hold up all year and that's going to be difficult. Depth is something the Gophers are going to have to work on for next year's team. (It should be noted that UConn isn't very deep either this year, nor very tall, so it can be done. But the Gophers will have to remain healthy and hopefully they can get Hubbard on the floor again...soon.)
 

There were certainly heavy minutes at the top of the lineups for Iowa and MSU:

Iowa Minutes (starters bolded):

38 Davis
36 Gustafson
33 Stewart
31 Doyle
26 Meyer

25 Servillian
11 Olinger

MSU Minutes (Colley and Gaines' time were certainly reduced by foul trouble):

39 Allen
38 Clouden
37 McCutcheon

27 Cook
15 Gaines
15 Colley

21 Hollie
7 Cooks
1 Belles
 





We were out for lunch with several friends. The game was on one of the screens. I saw MSU down early, then tie it, then it was 19-19. My next glance and it was the Lions-Packers game? Obviously the restaurant didn't understand the difference between meaningful and meaningless games. :)
 

https://msuspartans.com/news/2018/12/30/w-basketball-post-game-quotes-iowa.aspx?path=wbball

Suzy Merchant muses on guarding Gustafson.

On holding Iowa to 10 points in the 3rd quarter…

Some of it was just a little let's get a little more motivated conversation. You know I don't think we did that great of a job, she (Megan Gustafson) was getting too deep which we worked on all week and she was going to her right shoulder and we worked on that all week. So, we decided you know we talked about doubling, it's just tough to double in that triangle because they will just run the high-post guy down to the block, she will have a wide-open layup and you watch a million hours of film. So, she's tough because when you throw it in there one-on-one she's hard to stop, so if you start sending people, those guys can shoot threes, they can get dump downs. So, what we decided to do was give it one more shot, play a little bit stronger on that side, every now and then maybe send someone if we were close, if she was off the block and close we would kind of mess around with her a little bit.

Truthfully, I thought we were getting stops and pushing in transition and had them reeling a little bit, so I think it was maybe less our defense and a little bit more scoreboard defense, because we were scoring the ball at the time. In that quarter, we came out with a pretty aggressive mentality, but she's tough, I mean that kid is always I mean she averages 27 (points) and 13 (rebounds) for two straight years, she shoots 70 percent, I mean she does it against double-teams, zones, man, it doesn't matter. Our thing was we can't let anyone else get off and when you look at their stats, they only had one kid in double figures and it was barely double figures and they are like a four to five double figure team. So, I don't know, we needed to keep her somewhere under 30 I thought, she got 30 there, but we did a good job on everybody else.
 


She had 21 pts in the first half, so that should work out to be 9 pts in the entire second half. ��

It's not really confusing; the question was about defending Iowa and the response was mainly about defending Gustafson. Seemed like a perfectly normal head coach prioritizing to me.
 

Eh, I misread it as “holding Gustafson to 9 points”. I wonder why I did that? ;)
 




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