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 is putting Kohler in a bad position to succeed and will continue to hold this team back as long as it’s used as much as it is.
I do have some more thoughts on why Izzo went this route, which you can find in the next section…
That was a lot of Carson Cooper
Look, I know Szymon Zapala left the USC game with an injury. That being said, you are either good enough to play, or you’re not. Tom Izzo decided that Zapala could play on Tuesday night, but he only played him for ten minutes. Noticing Izzo’s reticence to play Zapala big minutes, UCLA coach Mick Cronin countered by playing 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara 24 minutes. This led Izzo to play Carson Cooper 30 minutes, by far the most on the team, and twice as many as his average. I am a fan of Cooper and think he’s a great rotation big, but MSU asked way too much of him on Tuesday night, and Cooper had three costly turnovers as UCLA attacked him every time he had the ball.
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This article originally appeared on Spartans Wire: Five takeaways from Michigan State’s loss to UCLA
