Tom Izzo has Michigan State basketball focused on critical stat in Ohio State clash

[ad_1]

EAST LANSING — “Casual” is not a term Tom Izzo throws around lightly. It generally means he wants sharper focus and intensity in some facet from his Michigan State basketball players.

A new year brought the return of the dreaded word. And Izzo’s biggest demand with Big Ten play the rest of the way is for the Spartans to cut down on their turnovers again.

It was an area the 30th-year head coach brought up both going into and coming out of Monday’s 80-62 victory over Western Michigan to close out nonconference play with six straight wins. And his drumbeat continued Wednesday after practice as No. 15 MSU prepares to hit the road for Ohio State on Friday (8 p.m., Fox).

The Spartans (11-2, 2-0 Big Ten) committed 11 of their 17 turnovers against the Broncos in the first half, and they are turning the ball over 12.2 times a game to rank 191st nationally and 16th out of 18 Big Ten teams.

“The truth of it is, it wasn’t that I wasn’t happy with the effort,” Izzo reflected Wednesday about the WMU win. “I felt like we got casual with our passing, the turnovers. If you look at what we did defensively and you take away like five turnovers for touchdowns, we probably did as good a job as we needed to do defensively.”

READ MORE: Experts predict how 8 Detroit sports teams will perform in 2025

Florida Atlantic Owls guard Niccolo Moretti battles Michigan State Spartans guard Tre Holloman for a loose ball during the first half at Jack Breslin Student Events Center, Dec. 21, 2024.

A year ago, the Spartans committed the fewest turnovers per game (10) of Izzo’s career, 35th-best nationally and fourth in the conference. That came after the previous Izzo-low of 10.9 per game in the 2022-23 season.

Prior to the past two years, Izzo’s previous teams turned the ball over 13.7 times a game in his first 27 seasons.

“I think that focus needs to be handled,” Izzo said. “And if you look at the (WMU) game, I think we had seven guys with two turnovers. It wasn’t like one guy had four,…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/tom-izzo-michigan-state-basketball-110731096.html

Author : Detroit Free Press

Publish date : 2025-01-02 11:07:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.