Wisconsin Basketball: Michigan State Loss isn’t Season-Ending

While the Spartans were coming off a rather impressive 88-69 win over IN on Sunday and had won 5 of their last 6 games. Both teams come into this game playing really good basketball. Tom Izzo’s team has three one-point losses in conference play.

IN led for 10-plus minutes in the first half and by as many as 10 points before struggling to score for almost 4 minutes before halftime.

Denzel Valentine had another big game as he continues to boost his candidacy for national player of the year honors.

A 7-0 surge at the end of the half drew the Badgers to within nine points at 32-23, but the Spartans spent no time fooling around in the second half. “We have pick-and-pop with Marvin (Clark), you know”.

Junior point guard Bronson Koenig, who had a career-high 27 points in the Badgers’ 77-76 win over the Spartans on January 17, scored 12 points Thursday. It came down to one possession last time, and it easily could again.

But Izzo also thinks the job Valentine has been doing – averaging 24.3 points and 8.3 assists a game since the loss in Madision – proves that his ability to pull up and shoot makes backpedaling defenders guard him, freeing up his teammates running alongside him. But they have ample opportunity to improve where they stand in the conference over the final two weeks of the regular season with a manageable schedule, featuring two games against Ohio State. The Big Ten player of the year candidate could not drive into a defense that usually allows penetration and was 3 of 10 from the field, making only one of his three 3-point shots.

The top four seeds will receive a double bye in the tournament which means they’d need to win three games in three days to be crowned champions instead of four games in four days (or even five in five for the bottom four teams).

Ferris State just lost to Northern Michigan, a game that snapped a eight-game unbeaten streak. He tacked on a couple of free throws a minute later to bump the lead to 20.

The Badgers fell behind 14-3 early and shot just 25-percent from the field in the first half. The apex won’t be reached until March, most likely, but the surging Spartans know exactly what they have going these days: The No. 33-ranked scoring offense, the No. 2-ranked margin of victory (16 PPG), the No. 4-ranked 3-point attack (42.3 PPG) and the most assists in college hoops (per NCAA.com). They ended their winning streak at seven games while extending their winless streak at Michigan State’s Breslin Center. The Spartans had 22 points on the break in a win over in, their second-most this season, and is outscoring opponents 277-150 in transition.