Once again, the Cardiac Cats come through! All the Overtime games, the close losses, the close wins, it has made this team laser focused in the dying moments of games. After the close victory, LSU moves on to face Michigan State. Michigan State comes in at 30-6, 16-4 in the Big Ten, and won the Big Ten tournament.They have defeated 15-Seed Bradley and 10-Seed Minnesota. Let's do a quick recap of Michigan State vs Minnesota.

Michigan State vs Minnesota Game Recap

On the surface, Michigan State absolutely demolished Minnesota. It's really not a surprising result considering MSU played Minnesota once earlier in the season and won by 24. However, there were a few key things that happened in the game that certainly could hinder MSU in the future, and some things that certainly hindered Minnesota's chances of victory.

Against Michigan State, Minnesota's star big man Jordan Murphy only played 4 minutes because of injury. Murphy averages 14ppg and 11rpg. Minnesota is not a great shooting team and Murphy is probably their best all around player.

Also, Minnesota shot 2 for 22 from the 3 and got outrebounded by 26!! 26!! However, problems could arise for Michigan State moving forward. They had 22 turnovers against Minnesota and if they reach 20 against LSU, it would be a nightmare for them.

Michigan State Lineup:

F Kenny Goins 6'7 230 SR- 8.1ppg, 8.9rpg 36% 3P%
F Xavier Tillman 6'7 260 SO- 9.8ppg, 7.2ppg
F Aaron Henry 6'6 218 FR- 5.6ppg, 3.8rpg
G Matt McQuiad 6'4 200 SR- 9.9ppg, 43% 3P%
G Cassius Winston 6'0 185 JR- 18.9ppg, 3.2 rpg, 7.5apg, 40% 3P%

Bench:

F Nick Ward 6'8 245 JR- 13.7ppg, 6.2rpg
F Gabe Brown 6'7 210 FR- 2.0ppg, 1.0rpg
F Thomas Kithier 6'8 225 FR- 1.6ppg, 1.2rpg

Michigan State lost one of their best players after 13 games in the season, Josh Langford. They went through a small rough patch and lost some conference games to not very good opponents, then lost Nick Ward for nearly a month, and finally they lost reserve big man Kyle Aherns in the Big Ten Championship game.

Despite all that, Izzo has coached this team to be one of the best in the country. He's led by All-American Cassius Winston. Winston puts up big scoring numbers and incredibly impressive assist numbers. This team is very very reliant upon him. Without Winston they simply cannot survive.

You may have noticed that they play almost all forwards except Winston and MacQuaid...and that's true. McQuaid and Winston HAVE to play nearly every second of the game. Against Bradley and Michigan they both played 39 minuets, and their backup was a walk on who basically does nothing.

Winston, McQuaid, and Goins are the only players who can or will shoot from the outside. They like to drive and get offensive rebounds. They don't have long players, but they have strong and physical players. Michigan State always have and always will play a tough

[b]Michigan State Stats:[/b]
Offensive
PPG: 78.5 (38th nationally)
FG%: 48.6% (18th nationally)
3P%: 38.1% (24h nationally)
2P%: 54.9% (28th nationally)
FT%: 75.7% (25th nationally)
APG: 18.6 (3rd nationally)
TOPG: 13.0 (180th nationally)
ORPG: 9.6 (80th nationally)
Offensive Efficiency: 1.113 (13th nationally)

Defensive
PPG: 65.1 (30th nationally)
RPG: 40.9 (5th nationally)
BPG: 5.4 (5th nationally)
SPG: 5.1 (294th nationally)
Opponent FG%: 37.7% (3rd nationally)
Opponent 2P%: 41.4% (3rd nationally)
Opponent 3P%: 31.4% (32nd nationally)
Opponent ORPG: 8.3 (171st nationally)
Opponent FTAPG: 17.1 (74th nationally)
Turnovers Forced: 10.1 (345th nationally)
Defensive Efficiency: .923 (16th nationally)

What The Stats Say

Well, what can you say? Top 20 offensive efficiency, Top 20 defensive efficiency. Pretty damn strong team. However, as impressive as it is, there are some flaws that I think work in LSU's favor.

Michigan State do a terrible terrible job at creating turnovers. They're very identical to Maryland in that they want to force you to the lane and contest your shots. They want to limit your transition and simply make everything difficult. However, theyre a little more vulnerable to giving up offensive rebounds. They've given up double digit OR's multiple times this season.

PREDICTION

I hope by now that LSU fans realize we have a great group. We had 26 bench points last game, all Freshmen, and without them LSU obviously doesn't win that game. There are games like Maryland and probably Michigan State where Marlon Taylor won't really fit. The beautiful part is that we have perfect compliments to him with Days and Smart.

I think Darius Days is so key this game. The way Michigan State plays, we will see a lot of 3 Forward lineups...we basically have to. And Michigan State only having 3 capable shooters allows KBW, Naz, Days, Emmitt to just sit and block out and hustle on the boards. On the opposite side, Days and Naz's ability to shoot along with Tre, Smart, and Sky allow offensive rebounds to occur.

Call me crazy, call me naive...I think LSU wins this game. Skylar Mays did a TERRIFIC job limiting Anthony Cowan. I think the staff would like Skylar to guard Winston, but then that means Tre is on McQuaid and that is not a good matchup. Basically, it has to be Tre vs Winston. I can tell you right now, you will not see a better PG matchup all season long. The rest of the country isn't quite aware of Tre, but LSU fans know that if Tre Waters is locked in and feels challenged, few are equal. We are also able to throw multiple people at Winston which could be very useful for us.

Also, Michigan State gets turnover happy sometimes. They also allow offensive boards. I think LSU is deeper and 1-8 much more talented. Winston is the best player on the floor, but I think Tre, Mays, and Naz are all better than MSU's next best player. If you had to list the top 10 most talented players, I think LSU has 6 maybe 7 to Michigan State's 3-4.

I know I know...Tom Izzo rabble rabble...but this is March, baby. Big time players make big time plays. This is where dudes make money. The Izzos, the Coach K's, the Roy Williams's of the world have all lost many many times to lesser coaches. I don't think this game is about X's and O's, it's about substitutions. Benford needs to make the right moves at the right time. For example, when Maryland hit us with a zone, we had multiple possessions of Emmitt, KBW, Taylor, Tre, Skylar...that is only 2 shooters and you need shooters vs a zone. Days should have played much more in the second half, and he should have been paired up with Naz more. Hopefully the coaches really hit the film and will be very prepared if MSU throws a zone against us.

With allllll that said (and I didn't proofread, not really sorry), my score prediction is...

LSU - 72
MSU - 68

LET'S RIDE

This post was edited on 3/27/19 at 1:02 pm

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