Michigan State, then Ohio State....

[Spartan18]

Re: Michigan State, then Ohio State....

Looks like Kalin Lucas may be out with a ruptured Achilles tendon from the Maryland game. Not that I wish ill will on anyone, but can someone who knows basketball size up how lucky of a break that is?

If Chris Allen isn't 100% or close to it, VERY lucky, but Michigan State is incredibly deep at the guard spot, and we beat Maryland with essentially no production from him anyways.

Even with our top PG down, we can still run a 3 guard set (Allen/Summers/Lucious) that would start on MOST tournament teams.

[9YRPLAN]

Re: Michigan State, then Ohio State....

msu has great guards. lucas is the fastest but if they get to practice a week without him then there shouldnt be a huge dropoff. sometimes their offense goes into lulls when he isnt on the floor though.

[Trapped in California]

Re: Michigan State, then Ohio State....

Looks like Kalin Lucas may be out with a ruptured Achilles tendon from the Maryland game. Not that I wish ill will on anyone, but can someone who knows basketball size up how lucky of a break that is?

Lucas was the leading scorer with over 15 per game (21% of the team's game average of 72.5), plus a couple of steals and a blocked shot per game. It only gets worse that he is the PG.

I truly hope that its not a ruptured tendon. That would be a long recovery at best.

This is a major impact to MSU. His backup came in and won the game, but he is a backup for a reason, as they say.

Any chance that MSU tries to put in one of the centers now that the mix has changed? They don't look like they have seem much daylight this year.

[Spartan18]

Re: Michigan State, then Ohio State....

Any chance that MSU tries to put in one of the centers now that the mix has changed? They don't look like they have seem much daylight this year.

Derrick Nix is a very capable center, at the beginning of the year he didn't catch many minutes because he was fat and shot FTs poorly. He's lost a considerable amount of weight and has shot 4/6 in the tournament from the stripe. Very capable on offense, strong on defense, and (Like everyone else on this team) hitting his stride at the exact right moment.

The issue is however, that in the B10 season, since most teams have gone to smaller lineups this year, we've been able to play the low post by commission between Draymond Green (A PF with do it all talent, scores well, rebounds excellently, and averages 3 assists per game, including the assist on the game winner vs. Maryland), Delvon Roe (Extremely highly recruited talent at PF. Roy Williams threw a temper tantrum when he went to Michigan State) and Raymar(ch) Morgan, who, despite being constantly seen as an underachiever has somewhere around 1500 career points and 750 career rebounds (And has been consistently scoring around 20 this March).



However, I highly doubt a guard injury will affect center play. If Izzo thinks that Nix (Or Sherman for that matter) can create a significant enough inside presence to change the game, they'll get minutes.

[clenz]

Re: Michigan State, then Ohio State....

just hope JE comes to play like he did against Cole

[MattR644]

Re: Michigan State, then Ohio State....

Lucas was the leading scorer with over 15 per game (21% of the team's game average of 72.5), plus a couple of steals and a blocked shot per game. It only gets worse that he is the PG.

I truly hope that its not a ruptured tendon. That would be a long recovery at best.

This is a major impact to MSU. His backup came in and won the game, but he is a backup for a reason, as they say.

Any chance that MSU tries to put in one of the centers now that the mix has changed? They don't look like they have seem much daylight this year.

Lucious is a good backup, but there's a reason Lucas was Big 10 POY last year and all-Big Ten these past 2 years. Lucious and Lucas are both very quick and have decent jump shots, but Lucas is safer with the ball, much better at penetrating and getting to the rim, has a better mid-range game, etc. If Allen is OK (big if), then we do have a good, athletic trio of guards (Lucious, Allen, Summers) with a couple more guys who can come in to give guys breathers/help on D (Thornton and Kebler). So it probably won't affect the make-up of the team on the floor (i.e. going bigger than usual), it'll just be slightly different personnel.

Amount of bigs on the floor will probably depend more on your personnel (of which I don't know too much about). If we want to get bigger, we'll play Morgan or Green at the 3 with Roe at the 4 (who will play limited minutes because of a knee injury) and one of the freshmen at center (Nix our wide-body, or Sherman) You'll probably be seeing more of Nix who plays limited minutes because of conditioning - he's 280+, was around 320 in high school. We also have a 7'0" center Tom Herzog who won't see the floor unless there's an emergency, and a senior reserve wing in Isaiah who could see some minutes depending on match-ups.

Of course, given our injury issues you could potentially seem some weird line-ups on the floor.

[trash]

Re: Michigan State, then Ohio State....

msu has great guards. lucas is the fastest but if they get to practice a week without him then there shouldnt be a huge dropoff. sometimes their offense goes into lulls when he isnt on the floor though.

Solid thought, but I think where he will be sorely missed, in addition to his point play, is in the transition game. He is the proverbial straw that stirs the drink.