Michigan State's Tom Izzo says, "We’ve got some intestinal fortitude"

Sometimes, basketball is truly a strange game and the 2022-23 Michigan State Spartans have had a strange season.

At times, this team has played well overall, yet fallen short in late stages of the game. Loses to Gonzaga, Purdue, Illinois, and Indiana come to mind. In other games, the Spartans did not appear to be as sharp, yet they were able to gut out a win. In this category, the wins over Kentucky and Michigan come to mind.

Thursday night’s 63-61 win over the Iowa Hawkeyes also falls into this category.

“Well, we've lost a couple we deserved to win,” Spartans’ Head Coach Tom Izzo said to open the postgame press conference.  “Tonight, we might have won one I'm not sure we deserved to win. So as Jud (Heathcote) always said, an ugly win is better than a pretty loss.”

Why was the game so ugly? Coach Izzo broke down the areas where he felt that his team fell short on Thursday night. Part of it had to do with his team’s defensive.

“We had some trouble with the ball screens,” Izzo said.

That stat sheet would seem to support Izzo’s observation. Iowa’s two leading scorers on the night were center Flip Rebraca (16 points) and point guard Ahron Ulis (17 points). They were the two players most involved in the pick-and-roll offense.

But ultimately, Michigan State held the Big Ten’s second most potent offense to just 61 points. It was the Spartans’ offense that nearly resulted in a costly home loss.

“I'm not very pleased that our offense right now,” Izzo said. “There is a lot of standing around. But we had two things: we didn't get to work on it because of the schedule, and we didn't execute very good.”

The problems on offense started right from the opening tip. The Spartans missed their first nine shots and trailed Iowa 10-0 before getting onto the scoreboard. When asked about the slow start, Coach Izzo had the following to say.

“I thought we missed some good shots, took some bad shots, and had a couple of turnovers,” he said. “It just didn't look like we were moving the ball in sync… With Joey (Hauser) Malik (Hall), and Tyson (Walker), we’ve got enough shooters. We should be a better offensive team than we are. I just didn't think we were moving the ball side to side. I thought it was staying on one side and there was too much one-on-one crap.”

But at the same time, the Spartans made just enough plays to get the win. Izzo did seem proud of the fight that his team displayed and the way that they found a way to win.

“There's no quit in our guys,” Izzo said.  “We compete.

“We’ve got some intestinal fortitude,” Izzo added. “I am not as excited about maybe the way we played but when you win some where you don’t play as well, that's the mark of a good team too. So now we get to move forward.”

A.J. Hoggard’s struggles.

A part of the Michigan State’s struggles with ball movement on offense fall squarely on the shoulders of starting point guard A.J. Hoggard. Coach Izzo was hesitant to criticize the play of his junior floor general, but the stat sheet tells a story.

Hoggard finished the game with just seven points on 3-for-12 shooting, including a perplexing 2-for-8 on layups. He posted only one assist to go along with three turnovers. Hoggard also missed the front end of a critical one-and-one free throw that could have iced the game with just 20 seconds left on the clock.

In order for this Michigan State team to reach its ceiling, Hoggard needs to break out of his mini mid-season slump.

There were some encouraging signs from Hoggard following the win, however. Just minutes after the game ended, Hoggard was observed to be back on the court practicing free throws.

When the media mentioned Hoggard work at the free throw line to Coach Izzo in the press conference, Izzo’s eyes lit up.

“I like that!” Izzo exclaimed. “I might go down there and buy him a pizza, except I have him on a diet. I might buy him monster salad or something.”

Izzo went on to comment that some of his best players over the years exhibited a similar attitude. He even told an anecdote about Steve Smith, who after “we got our butts kicked by somebody,” went straight to the weight room to get stronger.

“It's those kinds of guys,” Izzo said. “If you’ve got that drive, it’s going to pay dividends. So, if A.J. is shooting, I’d probably be a smart aleck and tell him to work on lay ups too, but that's me. But I'm proud of him for that. That’s great.”

He’s Baaaack (Again)

While A.J. Hoggard’s struggles against Iowa were a bit more obvious, it was not just him. Starters Tyson Walker and Joey Hauser also struggled from the field, especially inside the three-point line. Walker was just 2-for-9 from inside the arc (including 0-for-4 on layups) and Hauser was just 1-for-3 from two.

Fortunately, the Spartans received a somewhat unexpected spark off the bench. Malik Hall returned to action on Thursday night after missing the previous three game with a nagging foot injury. Hall was the x-factor that Michigan State needed to secure the win.

“If I had to pick a No. 1 star it was Malik,” Izzo said. “(because of) what he did with two days of practice and maybe a couple of walkthroughs last week.”

The coaches were not sure how many minutes Hall would be able to play, but he wound up playing 25 minutes and seemed to stabilize the Spartans following the slow start. Hall finished the game with 11 points, four assists, and three rebounds. He also led the team with a plus/minus rating of +13.

According to Izzo, it was essentially a game-time decision for Malik to make his return.

“I didn't know (that he would play) two days ago when I talked to his mom,” Izzo said. “I didn't know yesterday that he would play. It all comes down to getting up in the morning and how do you feel.”

According to both Coach Izzo, the presence of Hall on the court brings a certain calmness to the entire operation. The word that Izzo used Thursday evening was “comforting.”

“It's more comforting when he's out there because he helps,” he said. “He knows where to be. He knows what to do.”

Hall brings a versatility to the team that none of the other members of the roster can match.

“We can post him, we can get him the ball on the wing, and he can do some things,” Izzo said. “The guy just does a lot of things. If anybody wondered why we missed him; we missed him.”

Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery echoed the comments from Coach Izzo.

“They are way better with him (Hall),” McCaffery said. “He gives them a lot of flexibility in the frontcourt. They can go big. They can go small. He gives them quality minutes, another scorer, another defender and it make them more physical.”

Michigan State was able to survive some brutal parts of the schedule without having Malik Hall available to play. While it would be great to simply plug in another player in his spot and get the same production, the world simply doesn't work that way. Coach Izzo would even take that thought one step farther.

“I've always believed that the next man up theory is a crock,” he said.  “You got to do it. But you're never as good if you lose one of your key players.

“The reality of it is that Malik Hall brings some calmness to me,” Izzo continued, “Nobody else brings it to me.”

On to Purdue

With Thursday win over Iowa, the Spartans improved their record to 6-4 in Big Ten play and 14-7 overall. The last few weeks have been an intense grind.

“We're halfway through (the Big Ten season) and it feels like feels like we've been through two seasons,” Izzo said.  “I think I liked it better when we had 16 games, personally.”

For now, the schedule does not get any easier. On Sunday afternoon, once again with just two days of rest, the Spartans travel to West Lafayette to face No. 1 Purdue. The Boilermakers (9-1) currently hold a two-and-a-half game lead in the Big Ten standings over second place Rutgers (6-3).

Coach Izzo’s players are looking to the challenge.

“Last time, obviously, we were right there,” Joey Hauser said in the locker room following Thursday win over Iowa. “We'll tweak a couple of things… the coaches will break it down for us. I'm not sure exactly what they're going to have for us, but you have an idea because we played them so recently.”

“It's definitely a quick turnaround,” A.J. Hoggard added. “But it's I think it's definitely good to catch them again after (just two weeks). We're kind of familiar with each other. We can see what we struggled with and learn from it. (We will plan to) take the same game that we played here to Mackay, where it's going to be loud arena, and just focus in and try to get it rolling.”

The Michigan State/Purdue game is scheduled for 12:15 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 29. The game will be televised on CBS.

MSU may not have played well enough to deserve to win against Iowa, but in the end, they gutted it out. The return of Malik Hall was a big reason why.