4 takeaways from Michigan’s defensive win over top-10 Michigan State

To understand how much this stung Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo, whose team swept the season series against rival Michigan last season and had won seven straight against the Wolverines at the Breslin Center dating back to 2018, all anyone needed to see was the dismay on his face in the final moments, with the game already out of reach. Izzo, already the victim of a technical foul, was yelling at the referee while flanked by assistant coach Saddi Washington, who was there to make sure the Hall of Famer didn’t go too far. So many things over the previous two hours had irritated Izzo. From his team’s horribly slow start in the first half to what Michigan State considered an unfair whistle from the officials. From a furious second-half comeback that finally showed what the Spartans look like at their best to the final five minutes in which Izzo’s team surrendered a grueling 20-7 run after briefly taking the lead. It was arguably the most anticipated regular-season matchup between the Spartans and Wolverines in decades, the highest-ranked battle this rivalry has ever seen, and for most of Friday night, Izzo knew Michigan was the better team. The Wolverines led for nearly 37 minutes in an eventual 83-71 victory. Here are my takeaways: 1. The clash between old school and new school is headed to Michigan. While many coaching icons have opted for retirement in recent years — from Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams to Jay Wright, Jim Boeheim and Jim Calhoun, among others — Izzo has become one of the leading voices in college basketball, a long-toothed wiseguy with more experience and more success than seemingly anyone he faces. When issues arise in sports, like the recent brouhaha over player eligibility, Izzo’s voice is the voice that tends to cut through the noise like a knife. That’s why, toward the end of Friday night’s game, it was so hard not to imagine some of the press conferences and other public forums Izzo has used to deplore the transfer portal in recent years, to denounce the unfettered movement of players that continues to revolutionize roster building in sports. The Wolverines arrived at Breslin Center with a roster steeped in the second-best transfer portal in the country, according to 247Sports, behind St. John’s. More than 50 spots behind Michigan, at No. 56 in the overall transfer class rankings, were the Spartans and their old-school coach. Like it or not, the difference in how these two teams were constructed told the story of Friday’s game. The Wolverines’ top three scorers were expensive additions via the transfer portal, a testament to head coach Dusty May’s modern management of the program. Forward Yaxel Lendeborg of UAB scored 26 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, guard Elliot Cadeau of North Carolina scored 17 points and dished out six assists and forward Morez Johnson Jr. of Illinois had 12 points and four rebounds. Even former UCLA center Aday Mara contributed eight points and four rebounds. The Spartans, meanwhile, have gotten zero points from anyone who started their college career outside of East Lansing, relying almost exclusively on the program’s ability to develop young talent into mature stars. It’s a method that has served Izzo well for ages and has worked again this year with point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. and forward Jaxon Kohler. But competing for national championships is difficult when other programs are more willing to adopt the tools available to everyone. 2. Yaxel Lendeborg needs to be more assertive for Michigan to win it all There’s so much to like about Lendeborg, who arrived at Michigan as the No. 1 overall player in the transfer portal after two stellar seasons at UAB. His 6-foot-9, 240-pound frame looks like a prototypical NBA wing, and his measurements aren’t far from the body type of a LeBron James. He can, even at this size, handle the ball like a guard and initiate the offense when necessary. There’s nothing to question about what he offers defensively either, regularly showing enough versatility and quickness to protect players of all shapes and sizes. Yet as obvious as Lendeborg’s talents are — he was widely projected as a first-round pick in last year’s NBA draft had he decided to turn pro instead of transferring to Michigan — rumors swirl about his poise in critical moments. Lendeborg is so unselfish, so willing to defer to his teammates, that he has attempted more than 11 shots in a game only twice since a Dec. 21 non-conference win over La Salle. Since that day, his scoring average has been just 11.9 points per game – respectable, sure, but far from what is most expected from a player of his caliber. Much of the concern surrounding Lendeborg revolves around the 3-point line, where he shot 35.7% for UAB last season only to see his percentage drop to 30.3% so far this season. The mic view is even more concerning: Lendeborg entered Friday’s game having made just seven of his last 40 attempts (17.5 percent) from beyond the arc, then shot 1 of 4 against the Spartans, his only goal coming early in the first half. [Men’s College Hoops Spotlight: Rebuilding, Villanova Eyes NCAA Tournament Berth] Given the breadth of Lendeborg’s enviable skillset, it’s easy to imagine him scoring with ease at crucial moments, putting the initiative on his own shoulders. But aside from a layup with 2:33 left — a basket that extended Michigan’s lead to 71-65 — Lendeborg was largely calm as the Wolverines faltered. Nearly nine minutes of play went by without Lendeborg scoring a basket in the second half, in the middle of his team’s most pressure-filled stretch of the season. And while he helped secure the victory with six free throws when the score was out of reach, ultimately leading the team in scoring and rebounding, he needs to find more consistency heading into the playoffs. 3. Overconfidence in Fears Hints at Michigan State’s Ceiling Just as has been the case all season, Michigan State’s offensive possession began to follow a familiar pattern in Friday’s game against the Wolverines. Second by second, dribble by dribble, action by action, the spectacle belonged to Fears, whose grip on the ball never seemed to give up. He probed and penetrated to create his own shots. He slalomed around screens from the laps of the Spartans’ front court. He committed fouls at an impressive rate to get to the free throw line when everything he and his teammates attempted seemed to fail amid a first half marred by 27 percent shooting. Careful observers of the Spartans will know that nothing about this was particularly unusual; This is the way Fears has been forced to play all season. A glaring lack of depth at both guard positions means Fears, a redshirt sophomore, is shouldering one of the heaviest workloads in the Big Ten. He leads the team with 14.1 points per game and ranks second nationally in assists with 8.9 per game, behind Purdue point guard Braden Smith in that category. He entered Friday’s game having contributed to 51.6 percent of Michigan State’s field goals this season – the highest rate in the country, according to KenPom – and ranks fifth in the Big Ten in PRPG! at 5.5, by T-Rank, which measures the number of points an individual contributes to their team above what a replacement-level player would produce. There have been many nights where relying so much on fears has worked very well. He had 29 points and dished out nine assists in a win over Rutgers, scored 23 points and dished out 10 assists in a win over Indiana and had 21 points and 11 assists in a surprisingly competitive win over Cornell. Fears is leading the KenPom race to win Big Ten Player of the Year – recently surpassing Smith in that category – for a reason. But the way Friday’s game played out left Fears virtually the only offensive option at Izzo’s disposal. It was Fears who scored 12 of the team’s 26 points in the first half and Fears who was the only Spartan to score more than one basket during that stretch. Had small forward Coen Carr not converted a short runner as the first-half buzzer expired, Fears would have been the only Michigan State player with more than three points at the break. Izzo and his team will know that such a recipe could prove problematic when trying to organize a long playoff series. 4. Michigan pulled the punches early in a battle of elite defenses. Through much of Michigan’s incredible 19-1 start to the season, which matches the best 20-game record in program history, tying Final Four-bound teams from the 2012-13 and 2018-19 campaigns, the Wolverines have boasted the best defense in the country. A huge front line of three players 6-foot-9 or taller — including Mara, a 7-foot-3 monster — caused problems for seemingly every team Michigan faced. And starting with a 67-63 road win over TCU on Nov. 14, the Wolverines held 16 of their next 18 opponents to 72 points or fewer. Slowly but surely, however, and in true Izzo fashion, the Spartans began to rely more and more heavily on their defense during an equally impressive stretch in which they won 19 of their first 21 games. Aside from a stunning 114-97 win over Cornell – a game that proved to be a statistical outlier in more ways than one – Izzo’s team has only given up more than 70 points in a game twice, with one of those instances being an overtime victory at Rutgers. By the time Michigan State announced its matchup against Michigan on Friday night, the Spartans had leapfrogged their in-state rivals to claim the stingiest defense in the country, according to KenPom. But that’s not quite the impression most observers would have had after absorbing a first half that included nearly 18 minutes with Michigan in the lead. Instead, it was the visiting Wolverines who asserted themselves defensively early on to build an advantage that grew to 18 points. Tipped passes, skipped passing lanes and relentless physicality forced the Spartans to commit 11 turnovers in the first half, a sloppy sequence that was further compounded by ice cold shooting, scoring three field goals on 16 attempts to start the game and just seven in the first half overall. Izzo simmered and burst onto the Spartans’ bench while watching an opponent tougher and faster than his team – a rarity during his Hall of Fame tenure. 4 ½. What’s next? Both teams will have plenty of time to recover from the mental and physical challenge of Friday’s game before returning to the field next week. The Spartans will travel to Minnesota (10-11 overall, 3-7 Big Ten) for a tricky test on Feb. 4, while the Wolverines return home to host struggling Penn State (9-12 overall, 0-10 Big Ten) on February 5. In some ways, these two games serve as dividing lines for two programs that have enjoyed extremely favorable conference starts. Michigan, which entered the showdown with Michigan State having played the 18th-toughest slate in the Big Ten, according to KenPom, is preparing to embark on a final stretch likely to include at least four additional ranked opponents — including the enticing non-conference tilt against No. 4 Duke on a neutral court next month. And Michigan State, which played the league’s 17th-toughest schedule, is expected to face at least three other ranked teams in the coming weeks, including two away games. It all culminates with the rematch between these teams at the Crisler Center on March 8, the final day of the regular season. This is a game that could well have significant seeding implications for both the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAA Tournament.