MSU Red Cedar Message Board

Did you see Valentine and Harris down the court though? There's no way in hell LeVert stops them, and they were all right in front of Izzo. Sometimes you just have to trust your players to make a play, especially in a situation like that. If there were 10 seconds left, that's a different story, but 5 seconds is not enough time to call a very good play unless there's a complete defensive breakdown.

We lost a similar game in Ann Arbor several years ago when he called timeout just before a wide open (made) three. I truly wish someone would look at our historic performance in close and late situations after a to. There was a time it seemed to be a plus, but the last 5-8 years, it seems like we are taken out of things more than we get in them.
The Indiana game was a disaster, this was a disaster.

I thought it was a mistake as soon as he called it, not after Harris turned it over. In fact, I texted another RCMBer "Why a timeout? Jesus."

EXACTLY. /thread. Payne is great but there was a lot of potential for mistakes with him driving the ball up the court. would have called it as soon as he came down with the rebound to have 7 seconds left but it was more the execution of whatever happened between Appling and Harris that was the real issue with the timeout.

...and Izzo says in his post game, he wished he had another timeout to use.

Harris was supposed to take the shot, but the screens didn't get him open. He panicked and threw it away. He probably should've taken the contested 3-pointer, but that's just hindsight. Questioning Izzo's timeout isn't hindsight... I thought it was a bad idea as soon as he did it.

Especially a break like THAT one. Four of their players were looking at Payne behind halfcourt, and only one of them realized that Harris and Valentine were down the court.

Last year, I went through the play-by-plays from 2011-2012 to see what our efficiency was when calling a timeout in the last minute of the first half. Unsurprisingly, it was atrocious, especially for a team that was very efficient otherwise. I can't find the exact results, but we were scoring way less than 1 ppp--like somewhere around .5-.7 ppp.

I know that is a small sample size, but at some point, MSU needs to reevaluate this strategy if results don't improve.

I was expecting the worst to happen ... mostly a steal by Burke. Payne made a great play to kick it over to Valentine but that was just after Izzo called the timeout.

RIght, but that should be planned for since you know UM is going to key in on Harris/Appling. Don't they normally have a 2nd option on a play?

There's always a second option, but 5 seconds doesn't give you much time to get to that 2nd option. Harris looked panicked once he realized he wasn't even close to open.

If there was a second option, it wasn't Payne, Nix, or Valentine ... they were standing around watching. Harris went in the opposite direction of the screen and thought he was doing to get a good look, but it closed up and he panicked (as arfabe16 said).

Izzo NEVER calls a stem-the-tide timeout, so he can save them for the end. He should have learned with this not-very-smart group by now that these late-game strategems ARE NOT WORKING.

I can't say I blame him terribly for calling timeout when Payne was dribbling, but we had numbers and a break-out situation for like the second time in the game.