+3 and -3 from MSU vs. Purdue,

+3 1. The defense McQuaid and Henry played on Carsen Edwards. It's not just that they held him to 3/16 from the floor with 4 turnovers. It's how poor the quality of shots he got were. Even his makes were tough makes. They worked to force really low percentage looks from him all night. I'd argue that the way our bigs stepped out to help when he came off staggered screens was more of a double than even a hard-hedge. A hard-hedge implies you recover within a certain time frame. This was truly a double until not only was the guard thru the screen, but until it looked like Edwards had no chance to get a shot off. 2. While it is frustrating to see Kenny Goins go 2/6 on uncontested shots, he did so many things to impact the game last night. We see the 11 rebounds, 6 assists, and 3 blocks. But as Dakich said last night, having the level of basketball IQ he has on the defensive end to be even in the discussion for best help-side defender in the nation, is huge. When you play a gap-based defense, it's everything. I still don't think we have a lot of great individual defenders, but if you help like Kenny, your defense looks pretty good. 3. Winston the last 25 minutes. Need to find a way to get him going earlier, but those last 25 minutes he was something else. He is in the running for B10 Player of the Year honors as well as 1st team All-American. -3 1. The officiating in the 2nd half. I actually thought the first half wasn't bad. The 2nd half was a train wreck. The hook and hold isn't the officials' fault, but the rule is a disgrace. On that play, Haarms fouled Ward first, Ward then temporarily hooked him, then Haarms disengaged. In a game with that much contact, to automatically assign a flagrant one to that type of contact is a joke. In addition, I could count 10 fouls in the 2nd half where contact was minimal, no advantage was gained, and they could easily have let the game go on. One was when Eastern drove into the lane late in the first half, barely had contact by Winston that changed nothing about the play, and Wymer called a foul. That is where the NBA gets it. Guys are bigger, stronger, and faster than ever before. If a college official walked into an NBA game, they would call 3-4 fouls each time down the court. That was not fun to watch last night with both teams in the bonus after 9 minutes. Stop ruining the game! 2. I do think we saw there during the 2nd half a stretch where we missed Josh. Post doubles were getting to Ward, Ahrens/Goins/Tillman weren't hitting jumpers, and McQuaid was running around chasing Edwards. Those are the times where we need Langford's offense. Other guys stepping in and increase their roles helps in the long run, I just hope it doesn't cost us a game while he's out, which could cost us a title in the long run. 3. 27 3 point attempts is a lot! I didn't think we ran our post stuff quite as well (Purdue had something to do with that), didn't enter the post great, and execution out of doubles wasn't quite a s good. Post offense is the x-factor to this offense because there are going to be games where you shoot upper 20's or low 30's from "3" and you need that component to win. Misc * Was bummed to see Brown give up the "3" after making one on the other end. He trailed Kline pretty well on that play but went for the shot fake. * Very impressed with Trevion Williams. 13 and 12 in 21 minutes and we didn't have much of an answer. * Not sure that Purdue team is a tournament team. Lots of things will need to go well for them to get a bid, IMO. * Purdue did the best job I've seen this year of limiting our initial outlet in the transition game. Because of that, I thought we got less in transition than maybe any other game this year. I would imagine we are going to see more and more of that. * 36 minutes is a lot for Cash....would still love to see that number closer to 30 but after how Loyer looked bringing the ball up a couple times and how hard McQuaid was working on Edwards, I see the rationale.