1. You can't fake desperation. UCLA was desperate. MSU wasn't.
CHICAGO — UCLA played — and shot — like a team with something to prove Friday night. By the time Michigan State matched that sense of urgency, it was just a little too late.
The Spartans will likely play with more of an edge to them in the NCAA tournament. But we also saw some of the formula for a lesser seed to beat them — have a point guard who outplays Jeremy Fears Jr., or is at least his equal, and hit 56% of your shots and 13 of 27 3-point tries, like the Bruins did. Not every team has that potential. UCLA does.
“We matched their physicality and played an unbelievable first half,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin said.
UCLA’s players credited a change of mindset since their blowout loss in East Lansing last month. The Spartans didn’t have the same grit early they did a week ago in Ann Arbor, or a week before that at Indiana, or just before that at Purdue.
To be fair to MSU, UCLA made shots that’ll make the Bruins a tough out the rest of this month. And probably had to, especially once leading scorer Tyler Bilodeau went down with a knee injury late in the first half.
And to be fair to UCLA, this wasn’t a fluke. The Bruins are the leading 3-point shooting team in the Big Ten, they’d recently beaten Illinois and Nebraska, and point guard Donovan Dent, who had a triple-double on Thursday, had 23 points, 12 assists, six rebounds and just two turnovers Friday. He has 77 assists and six turnovers over the last seven games, since the loss at MSU.
“He just got to his spots wherever he wanted on the court,” Fears said of Dent. “I didn’t do my job making it hard for him.”
I’d say this is a good lesson for the Spartans to learn — that a great effort in the second half can get you beat if you don’t bring it out of the gate. But they know that. This is a seasoned team. I think this was probably a combination of an unintentional rope-a-dope by the Bruins — who didn’t show up at Breslin Center, and played Friday like they were embarrassed by that — and the exhale that sometimes comes with the Big Ten tournament, after a two-month Big Ten grind and just ahead of the most pressure-packed and important games of the season. The Big Ten tournament can be a difficult interlude in the season.
“They played harder, tougher,” Tom Izzo said. “That doesn’t happen to my team very often. But for some reason, we didn’t answer the bell coming out.”
MSU had some decent performances. Fears had 21 points, 13 assists and four turnovers. Coen Carr had 12 points, eight rebounds, a couple of them loud, and a couple spectacular buckets. Kur Teng made a massive 3-pointer and finished with 13 points, and Trey Fort showed up in a big way (more on that below). MSU was really good on the offensive glass, with 16 offensive rebounds.
But UCLA was the better team most of the night.
“We just kind of weren’t with it tonight,” Izzo said. “They played desperate tonight. I absolutely loved that. … It took us two-thirds of the game to respond.”
You can’t fake desperation.
2. Fort’s performance is a notable highlight
Trey Fort had the loudest eight minutes of his season at MSU on Friday night, all in the second half, making the most of an unexpected opportunity. He scored nine points, including 2-for-2 from beyond the arc, in 13 total minutes, eight of those in the second half to help MSU stay afloat and battle back.
Credit to Fort, who’s had a disappointing season beyond his worst dreams. But he’s kept his head and his attitude and showed why he can still be a good emergency option for this MSU team. Had the Spartans won, he would have been a big reason for it.
His first 3-pointer, when he faked a pass and moved the defense away from him and let it fly, was the sort of confident and savvy basketball play he’s got in him. He had a pull-up jumper right after that and then a nice drive and over the shoulder dish to Jaxon Kohler for a 3-pointer. Then another 3 himself, rising up from the right wing to bring MSU back to within five points (63-58) for the first time since the middle of the first half.
MSU is full of capable shooters, guys who can score, but don’t always. Having another guy who might be available to provide a lift, when the rest of it isn’t going well, could be important in the coming weeks.
3. MSU might still be a 2 seed in the NCAA tournament
As of tipoff Friday night, the Spartans were considered the third No. 2 seed in the aggregate of all the bracketologists whose NCAA tournament projections make the Bracket Matrix (bracketmatrix.com). If the Spartans had won Friday, unless the selection committee saw MSU’s resume differently, I think they were very likely set as a 2 seed. Now it’s less clear.
Losing to UCLA makes it possible that MSU winds up as a 3 seed when the NCAA tournament bracket is revealed Sunday night. The Spartans still might earn a 2, helped by what’s happened with some of the other teams battling for the same seed line. Nebraska fell to Purdue, falling to the 3 line in the Bracket Matrix. Purdue remained a 3, and now won’t have the chance to beat MSU in Saturday’s semis, which would be a stronger win than beating UCLA.
Remember, the committee doesn’t care about what round in the conference tournament this is. It’s all about who you beat and who you didn’t — Saturday is no different than last Saturday. Sunday’s Big Ten tournament championship is usually the only entirely irrelevant game to the NCAA tournament on a team’s schedule all season, because it happens after the seeds and draws have been determined.
Also pertinent to MSU’s NCAA tournament seed — Illinois’ loss to Wisconsin and Iowa State falling just short of upsetting Arizona, which would have been an enormous win. The Illini and Cyclones are both teetering right on that 2/3-seed line, too.
None of these teams had a truly damaging loss, all of them Quad 1 defeats. UCLA, which was No. 33 in the NET rankings, was the lowest ranked of the teams. Arizona, No. 3 in the NET, was the best loss, a similar defeat to MSU’s last weekend at Michigan. It won’t be judged differently, just because it happened this weekend.
So, we’ll see. The Spartans had a chance to leave it a lot less up to the selection committee than they have. What we know is they’ll almost certainly be a No. 2 or 3 seed, very likely beginning in Buffalo. Everything else is up in the air.
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU basketball falls to UCLA in Big Ten tournament: 3 quick takes