EAST LANSING – Tom Izzo did not mince words after watching Michigan State basketball endure another slow start before another comeback win.
The 15th-ranked Spartans’ 66-60 escape against Ohio State on Sunday, Feb. 22, proved another game with the same problems. That’s frustrating for the Hall of Fame coach who knows what that means come March, and frustrating for the players who see and feel everything on repeat over the past two months.
“Why is it the same stuff keeps happening? At what point is it gonna change?” point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. said. “The slow starts, the easy buckets, the not guarding. It’s been the same thing over and over.”
Izzo planned to bring his players back Sunday night for a team meeting to try and solve some of the ongoing issues with four regular-season games remaining. It was a tacit admission, amid his overall disappointment in the poor performance against the depleted Buckeyes, that he’s not satisfied with where things are at despite MSU’s 22-5 overall record and 12-4 mark in Big Ten play.
“We looked like a team that played like, ‘We’re gonna win anyway, so we’ll just do what we want to do,’” Izzo said. “And that was the message at halftime: You don’t get to do that.”
Even before the Spartans reconvened Sunday evening, however, those discussions already were happening moments after the game. Instead of their typical postgame weightlifting, MSU’s players all were seated quietly together at their individual lockers as reporters arrived, digesting the players-only talk they had while Izzo was meeting with the media a floor above them and damning their performance despite another win.
“I think right now, it’s gonna be more about getting an idea of where everybody’s head is,” senior captain Carson Cooper, who had a career-high 20 points with 11 rebounds, said of the impending conversations. “We’re kind of trying to get everything on the table and make sure there’s nothing like last year, where we might have one or two guys that have already checked out when the season’s still going on. And to make sure that we still have goals and we’re still playing for something.”
After falling behind to the Buckeyes (17-10, 9-7), who were missing two of their top three scorers, MSU now has trailed at halftime in eight of its 16 Big Ten games this season. Sunday was the fifth time the Spartans came back and won after falling behind at the break.
With three of the final four games on the road, beginning at No. 7 Purdue on Thursday (8 p.m., Peacock), that makes starting strong imperative. Of the seven times MSU has led at halftime this season, five came at Breslin. The strongest road start was arguably in a 58-56 loss at No. 9 Nebraska on Jan. 2, a game that was tied 33-33 at the break. The Spartans were plus-8 at half during a win at Washington and just plus-2 at intermission in a victory at Oregon, a game in which they scored just 28 first-half points but held the Ducks to 26.
“It happened at Rutgers. It happened at Penn State. It happened at Minnesota. It happened at home. Like, at what point is it gonna click?” said Fears, who had nine of his 11 points after halftime. “We scout, we practice hard, we do what we need to do. So why is it not translating? … We have to figure that out. That’s something that the guys in this locker room, the guys to our left and our right, have to figure out.”
Early scoring also has been an issue, particularly in the new year. The Buckeyes held a 26-23 halftime lead against MSU on Sunday, the sixth time the Spartans were held under 30 points in the opening half since getting 28 in their Jan. 8 home rally against Northwestern before overcoming a seven-point halftime deficit.
So what does Fears feel is causing the persistent problems?
“I don’t know, honestly,” the third-year sophomore captain said. “It’s just the same thing keeps happening. And at one point soon, it won’t happen. You won’t come back. You’re gonna lose, and you’re gonna be at home.
“It’s just understanding that we need spark, we need energy from the get-go. We need togetherness, we need us to all be on the same page, we need to know what we’re doing. We gotta put the pieces together, that’s all I can say.”
Freshman guard Jordan Scott, who had 10 of his 12 points in Sunday’s second-half recovery, said finding the 40 minutes of consistency Fears feels the Spartans need down the stretch will be among the biggest topics of the conversations. Particularly because MSU has shown, with its propensity for second-half comebacks, that their ability and will to fight exists.
“With the strong finishes, we’re just a tough group,” Scott said. “But it shouldn’t take for coach to get into us, for players to get into us, and we have to pick it up. I think we’re a really tough group in that sense, but it shouldn’t have to get to that point. I just think we have to have that from the jump and just be able to play that 40 minutes like we’re down 20.”
Cooper, who scored 14 points in the second half for his third double-double this season, also pointed out that these conversations are common and healthy in Izzo’s program. Usually, they are initiated more by the players themselves and not triggered by Izzo, he added.
“We’ll have a good meeting, I think we’ll grow from it,” he said. “But ultimately, it’s the level of maturity that we gotta have now. Coach always says the freshmen and new guys, ‘You’re not new guys once you get past the first half of the season.’ … There’s gotta be that level of maturity where everyone is clear on what we need to do.”
“There’s no negative behind it,” Cooper continued. “Coach says player-coached teams are the best. And I think right now, it’s a little more of a coach-coached team. So we gotta get back to the player-coached mentality.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tom Izzo calls meeting after Michigan State basketball rally vs OSU