MSU when the game is on the line
Against James Madison, they had the lead 68-64 with 1:26 left, only to lose in OT
Against Arizona, they led 66-63 with 3:57 and were outscored 11-2 the rest of the way
Against Nebraska, they led 65-62 with 3:12 left and were outscored 15-5 the rest of the way.
7-2 with a win over #1 Arizona, and the only losses being to Duke and Wisconsin is probably still ranked in the top 15. Instead they are likely are missing the tournament. Will Izzo get them better by March? Probably. But the difference this year is that...
(i) MSU has no good wins (they have no Q1 wins, and one Q2 win); and
(ii) they don't have the opportunities to make up this start. In 2021 when they looked dead, they came back by beating three top 5 teams (OSU, Illinois, UM) in a 2 week span at home in February. This year the Big Ten has one top 5 team (Purdue), and two lower top 25 teams (Illinois and Wisconsin). They don't play Purdue at home, and they already lost at home to Wisconsin. So unless they beat one of those teams on the road, they only have one home game left against a ranked team. And it's not like Illinois is some elite team. If they go 10-5 in their final 15 games, does that help? Let's say that's losses at Wisconsin and Purdue, and a win at home against Illinois. 9-3 against a mix of bubble and bad teams doesn't claw you out of this hole. And I've never seen an MSU team play as bad as this one. This is on Izzo's refusal to use the portal. He has two true bigs. One is a 5th year senior who has been a proven bust, the other is a walk on sophomore. They combined for 0 points and 3 rebounds last night. Nebraska's big they pulled out of the portal set career highs in rebounds and assists, because he's playing against two guys who should not be playing at this level.
