+3 and -3 from MSU vs. Virginia Tech,

-3 1. Team after team just doubles Winston off-ball screens. It essentially takes him out of the half-court offense. He throws out of it, we play 4 vs. 3, and we can't convert 4 vs. 3. We don't make the right decision, turn it over, or don't make the shot. Teams are guarding us exactly how Kentucky guarded us, which is the ultimate disrespect for our other 4 players, but they haven't made them pay. After that game, I heard about how we would make teams pay that did that and here is another game where we couldn't. We either have to develop more/better counters for the doubles or guys just have to make plays. The counter with Henry at point and Winston as the ball-screener and Henry as playmaker got him better looks in the last 5 minutes. But I heard someone on this board say Winston wouldn't shoot like he did vs. Kentucky again. Well, here we are. When teams guard him like this, it's going to be REALLY hard to get him good looks. 2. You can't shoot the ball this poorly (41%) against quality teams, combine that with all the turnovers (16), your best player having a subpar game, and win. I know where this team ranks in overall adjusted-offense, but how they play against good teams is what matters. Against UK, tonight, and the first half vs. Seton Hall, half-court offense wasn't good enough. 3. Cut the lead to one, after everything that happened in the game, they run a stagger for Nolley and Tillman doesn't hedge/help out. He literally has a defender right behind him and Henry is sprinting to get thru. Tillman HAS TO show there. There are hundreds of little plays that win/lose a game, but that defensive error was a HUGE one. Nolley ends up hitting the "3" and we lose. That is a defensive assignment error that you can't have a player like Tillman make. The game is won/lost on a lot of small plays. +3 1. Henry's play the last 5 minutes. He really struggled the last 5 minutes of the first half, but turned into a playmaker and scorer late in the game and really brought us back. 2. For the most part, we defended well. You take out the fouling late and we gave up about 65. The first 8 minutes of the 2nd half we gave up about 8 points and were so inept offensively that we couldn't close much ground. I think our half-court defense, outside of the 2nd half vs. Seton Hall has been positive. 3. Out-rebounded them 43-27. I think that shows effort. People will claim this team was sleep-walking or it was an effort thing. They will talk about Maui and the beach. I disagree. I think minus Winston for much of the first half and Langford for the entire game, we are gonig to have games like this offensively. But I don't think it has anything to do with effort. It has to do with making shots. MISC * Our inability to be able to throw the ball into the post and score the ball really hurts. You play top-side foot and a hand against Tillman and we can't even get a touch. Wish we'd go with more high/low looks when post-defended like that. * Xavier Tillman simply needs to be a more effective offensive player. 4/10 with 5 turnovers isn't going to cut it for what this team needs offensively. * People can complain all they want about Izzo sitting Winston with 2 fouls in the first half. I disagree with it but we know it's not changing. My issue is that for the 2nd big game, Winston committed that foul. A useless reach-in in transition. Just like Seton Hall, your senior All-American has to be smarter than committing that foul. * That step-back "3' from Loyer is a shot he HAS to make. It's why he's on this team. That was a big miss in terms of back and forth momentum. Uncontested missed 3's throughout the game catch up to you and plenty of players had them. * If the other team makes 10 3's and shoots 48% from there, going to be a tough game to win.