+3/-3 and Coaching Corner from MSU vs. Indiana,

+3 - I'm reaching here as there aren't many positives from that game 1. A couple really good individual performances. Cash played a million minutes and had 26, 8, and 8. Goins with 12, 8, 8, and 6, including a big "3" late in regulation. 2. Only 10 turnovers. Valued the ball pretty well. 3. McQuaid and Henry held Romeo to 6/18 from the floor including a dreadful shot at the end of regulation. -3 1. You wouldn't be that out of line to call this one of the worst home losses in recent memory. Indiana, minus what might be their best player, losers of 7 in a row, after you had 6 days off, as a 15 point favorite, with sole possession of the B1G on the line, and at home. We didn't play well for any stretch of that game, IMO. It was a poor effort from many individuals and collectively. It's why winning a regular season is so hard and so impressive because you can't have many of those games and do it. Tonight has all the makings of a bad, bad, loss. 2. The ceiling is lower without Josh, how much lower? Well, tonight offers some insight into that. College basketball is a game full of wing talent. Almost every team has talented wings that can score the ball. Without Langford, we had 10 points from our starting wings tonight. 10 points from 2 players and 3 more from our wing off the bench. If Henry, Ahrens, and McQuaid are going to combine for 13 points on 2/6 from "3," the Langford impact is on the bigger end. Sure, you can sustain losses of key players for stretches of time, I just think it catches up to you here and there with a couple nights like tonight. Maybe I'm over-emphasizing that a little, but it sure felt like that last Sunday, tonight, and maybe another couple times before the B1G season is over. 3. Couple big stats. Obviously, 8/22 for 36% from the line is going to kill you in a game that goes to OT. Indiana going 4/4 from "3" in a big stretch late in the 2nd half was huge. Some of those were on blown defensive assignments. Indiana with 21 offensive rebounds is another bad stat. Those 3 stats were killers tonight. Coaching Corner * Indiana's post doubles were VERY effective. Even when we dribbled out or reversed it, they scrambled and recovered. When Henry was in, they just left him and doubled with his man. I think if you play MSU and don't double, you are nuts. I would double off Tillman and Henry over and over. Never should you guard Ward one on one. * Indiana did a great job playing really high side post defense, especially in the first half. They really took away the high-low game, in sets and in secondary break, better than any team all year. Good prep and execution by Archie's guys. * There will be games where you can't get the transition game going for many reasons, either because our wings don't make plays, IU takes away secondary looks, or we just don't make the right plays. When you combine that with taking away Ward, that's the recipe to beat MSU. That's a lot of what Indiana did tonight. * Some of MSU's best looks tonight came with Winston off the ball. Twice we scored on the back-screen/re-screen look. One was a "3" by Winston and the other was a dump to Goins then Tillman for a dunk. Izzo also ran a fake-scissors look where Winston flared with about 35 seconds left in OT to get a "3" to cut it to one. Haven't seen them run that set this year. * For all the good Archie did, the last possession of regulation was a joke. RUN A PLAY!!! You've heard me talk about this over and over and over. For 12 months of the year you work on your offensive plays. You run 5 on 0 thousands of times. You have detailed playbooks that have amazing concepts in them. Then, you go 1-4 flat with a fake ball screen for the last play? That ends up in a 24-foot backboard only effort. RUN A PLAY, RUN A PLAY, RUN A PLAY! MISC * Maybe the "2018-2019 team is so much better than the 2017-2018 MSU team" crowd will pump the brakes a bit tonight. Maybe we should wait until the end of the year to make those statements? I will tell you that last year's team didn't lose a B1G game anywhere near this bad. * Nick Ward is the true X-factor for this team. When he is not very good, like he wasn't tonight, we become a primary jump shooting team, with guys like Ahrens, Goins, and Tillman taking some of those jumpers. When he is going to work inside, different world * I'm shocked Winston didn't finish one of those last 2 plays. Was amazing again, played a million minutes, but still surprised he didn't make at least 1/2. * I think the ref may have glanced Izzo's head when he came over to go face to face with him. Izzo was freaking out and probably deserved a T, but don't head-butt or nearly head-butt the man. That's weak. * I do buy the bad week of practice, Ward with the flu, emotional toll with hearing of Langford being out, the cumulative effect of all of that showed tonight. I just think the Langford-effect outweighs all of that.