Spartans not looking so mighty
December 5, 2008 by Ryan Pravato
Filed under Basketball
UNC beat the Michigan State Spartans down by 35 on Wednesday.
Not only did lightning quick (tell that to Ty Lawson) sophomore guard Kalin Lucas struggle, virtually no points came from Michigan State’s frontline, and to make matters worse, the Ford Field crowd had the intensity of a mid-August Royals crowd at Kauffman Stadium.
Spartans Weblog author kj was actually at the drubbing,
…the environment at Ford Field didn’t help. The sparse crowd (relative to the size of the arena) never gave the team any kind of emotional lift. At one point in the second half, the crowd gave a Bronx cheer after a made field goal–something I’ve never witnessed in my years of attending MSU basketball games.
So we’ll give the team a gigantic pass on the final twenty minutes of the game.
Watching the Spartans from time to time so far this season, I get the feeling this team is missing one ingredient. I believe that one ingredient is a healthy and explosive Delvon Roe. Once he gets back that extra lift he had prior to the knee surgery, look out. He’s currently averaging 5.5 rebs/gm and 1.2 blk/gm. He’s shown some flashes. He has a high basketball IQ.
Unfortunately for State fans Delvon won’t be back at full strength until next season. Wait, actually that’s a great thing.
Just think about next season …
Jr. Kalin Lucas
Jr. Chris Allen
Jr. Durrell Summers
Sr. Raymar Morgan (iffy)
So. Delvon Roe
So. Korie Lucious
So. Draymond Green
Not even counting the couple solid freshmen coming in.
I know I know, it’s not always about next season. Predictable trap everyone gets sucked into at certain times.
But next season does look good for Sparty.
That’s why you don’t play basketball games, particularly in November or December, in NFL stadia. It just doesn’t work. All the photos from that game look like it was a scrimmage. I’m sure there were tens of thousands there but since the capacity for basketball is like 60,000 or whatever, it looked absurd. Plus they were doing the weird Minnesota/Vanderbilt court thing where the benches and scorers table were below the floor.