Five takeaways from Michigan State’s loss to UCLA

[ad_1]

Michigan State basketball suffered their second straight Big Ten loss in four days on Tuesday night against UCLA. It felt eerily similar to Saturday’s loss against USC, also in Los Angeles, as the Spartans defense looked fierce but the offense failed to get anything going, ending in a frustrating loss for the Spartans and their fans.

Below, we put together five takeaways from the loss.

Jaden Akins’ second-half defense was incredible

Michigan State may have lost this game, but after trailing most of the contest, some heroic, aggressive defense from Jaden Akins almost single-handedly got them back into this one. Akins also led all scorers with 15 points.

Frankie Fidler has some rebounding chops

It wasn’t the best offensive game for Frankie Fidler, but I thought some of his six rebounds were extremely impressive and encouraging for the future of the season.

The turnovers continue to be a major problem

It’s honestly amazing that MSU only lost by two points considering how many turnovers they had. They lost the turnover battle 16 to 3, an almost ridiculous margin, and probably would’ve won this game easily if they just stayed closer to their average of 10.

Tom Izzo’s stubborn lineups finally spurned MSU

I have written about this all year, and now MSU is finally starting to pay the price for Tom Izzo’s stubbornness with his lineups. Tom Izzo, who admittedly, has probably forgotten more about basketball than I will ever learn, has been insistent on playing a two-big lineup with Jaxon Kohler and either Carson Cooper or Szymon Zapala. I think Jaxon Kohler is at his best when he plays center. At power forward, in the modern game, he struggles against quicker players. Kohler had three turnovers and gave up some easy baskets on the other end. We saw the impact of this in the final moments of the game, where Kohler could not shake his defender loose, and ultimately turned the ball over on a shot-clock violation, giving UCLA the opportunity to win the game. I think playing this two-big lineup…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/five-takeaways-michigan-states-loss-162034019.html

Author : Spartans Wire

Publish date : 2025-02-05 16:20:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.