Wednesday, December 5, 2012

A Week Seems Like A Year

As you know a lot has happened in the B1G and for MSU over the last week.  Pat is still AWOL and there are no signs of his return, at least until he gets back to California.  Maryland and Rutgers to the B1G (ugh) MSU eeked one out past Minnesota (yay).  michigan lost to OSU (meh).  Coupled with that have been some basketball games.  Where MSU has won some close ones, lost a sloppy one and cruised to a victory.

This MSU basketball team is the tale of two teams.  A team with a backup point guard and a team without.  MSU looks a lot better when Trice is playing.  Trice is a career (approximately)  48% three point shooter.  Last year he shot just over 40% and this year is shooting 56% (though his total shots this year are hardly enough to predict season results).  But this is what Trice can bring to the MSU team, a three point threat (and a breather for Appling)  Should Trice keep up his current pace of 1.6 threes made per game.  That would likely land him in the top ten in the B1G.  That seems like a stat he is more likely to upkeep versus the 56% made.  For comparison sake, Trice made .93 threes per game.  Even if he were to land somewhere in the middle of .93 and 1.6 that would be an extra dimension that seems to be missing (hopefully Byrd can get going, get some confidence).

http://binaryapi.ap.org/b16607a898c646f5ae08bf2f0bc697e4/940x.jpg 
(make more of these please)

The Spartan Football team was able to make a bowl game!!!! WHOOO HOOOOO.  Pat and I both had the Spartans pegged for 9-3.  We were just a bit off - a call or a field goal away from being there though.  I guess that's sports.  The defense was every bit as advertised - in some aspects better and some aspects worse.  What was shockingly poor was the offense.  Line injuries, I feel, really hampered the development of the passing game.  I am 100% not in the Spartan camp that thinks we should have been playing Connor Cook.  Those people are loony.  Where do go from here though?  Well, we go to a bowl game.  The Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl against TCU.  Seems winnable. More on that later.  What I would like to talk about is next year.  Or as Mark Dantonio said at the team banquet "You will be the ones. And you know what I mean by that" (thank you Joe Rexrode twitter).  So what is meant by that?  Winning football games, duh!  MSU is looking to bounce back from a meh 6-6 season.  I would love an 8-4 year next year.  Looking ahead, the schedule is more favorable for MSU (the problem with that is that the only good home game is against UM).  With road games at Notre Dame and Nebraska. 

Tonight MSU basketball plays Arkansas Pine Bluff in what should be a sleeper of a game.  No sense in writing a write up for this game.  Especially since I will be at work missing most of the game.

Coming up next on the blog, is MSU Football entering a Wide Receiver apex?  Was this really a down year for the B1G?   Will Pat ever blog again, or is he resting on his past accomplishments, like a typical michigan fan?

2 comments:

  1. Couple of critiques...

    "Tail" of two teams? That sounds painful.

    Also, going to put my math hat on here. Trice is a career 42% (35/83) three point shooter. This is much different than 48%. Shooting 48% would put him top 15 in the country last year. Also, remember, Trice has only played in 3 games this year, missing the KU game. Sample size issues apply here even more than other players because of the injury

    How is Pat not writing about Michigan bball? they look very good. Stauskas looks like the perfect fit for Beilein's system, and though it is early, this team has played up to its lofty preseason rank.

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  2. Yea my proofreader, pat, isn't around to catch those mistakes.

    I am well aware that trice has played three games. But that illustrates a few things, how much I don't care for stats/predictors (he might keep this up he might not) and also how important his ability to shoot is to the team. I'm just averaging his current percentages, I fear math. Again, I need pat around.

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