Miles Bridges rises to the moment for Michigan State

The Ohio State loss saw an inordinate number of bobbled balls, tipped passes or tied-up dribbles. Situated second behind Ohio State in the Big Ten, Michigan State has set themselves up for a run if they can keep it up for another month. “If you’re going to play him one-on-one, we’re going to throw him the ball”.

That to the Buckeyes in the biggest game of the season exponentially heightens the importance of Saturday’s game at No. 4 Michigan State. It hasn’t been the best though. We’re in position to win the Big Ten still.

No. 14 Ohio State returns home from a big midweek road victory to face Iowa on Saturday in a Big Ten game at Value City Arena. “Your focus goes to those things, not as much as ‘Hey we lost a game and now we can’t lose another one'”. The Spartans game was a 16-point blowout.

“They made a decision not to double Isaac and so a lot of people won’t continue to go to the well”, Purdue coach Matt Painter said. The problem is the blueprint: Michigan State was the latest team to draw up the plan, and the first to follow it for 40 minutes and have it pay off, and you can believe this: More teams will follow that trail.

“We’ve been able to close out games”, Painter said, “which is a good quality to have as a team”. There are two teams in the country that rank in the Top 10 in both effective field goal percentage and effective field goal percentage defense: Purdue (eighth and 10th, respectively) and Michigan State (fourth and second). The Indiana product came of the bench to score a team-high and career-best 18 points. He finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds.

Nick Ward is another key component to this offense. Finding a way to slow down the trio was tough for any opponent but even more so for the Spartans and their unexpectedly depleted front court. And the Spartans added freshmen Xavier Tillman and Jaren Jackson Jr.

The Spartans also rank sixth nationally in offensive rebounding percentage.

While Cassius Winston filled up the stat sheet with 10 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds, Bridges was the star for Michigan State, always seeming to come through in clutch moments. He netted just eight points, less than half his average in Big Ten play. “That’s not who they are, they move the ball so well”. But it is not one of those years, like last year, where we were 14-4 and you win the league. They didn’t commit their first turnover of the game until more than 31 minutes had elapsed.

While Haas’ 7-foot-2, 290-pound size overwhelms any single defender, Izzo also knew the danger overplaying Haas: leaving outside shooters open.

Last year, the average home attendance for the season was 12,324. Dakota Mathias has played outstanding for the Boilermakers as they were on a quest to find a point this season. But now without the 19-game winning streak and playing for perfection during the conference season, maybe now this team can loosen up and play composed. This time, the Buckeyes pushed their lead to 22 points with a 14-0 run roughly five minutes into the second half, and the result was never in doubt from there. He did not get to the foul line Saturday for the third straight game, leaving him stuck at 30 in a row, four short of Street’s mark. The senior guard has hit 47 three-pointers this season and leads the team with 36 steals.

Iowa: Plays at No. 20 MI on Wednesday. All in all, all six guys played really, really well at times this weekend.

“We’ll just wait on that”, Coach McCaffery said.