Well, that was NOT pretty. MSU grinds it out at Crisler for a 54-42 win. For Michigan, this was a devastating blow to their tournament chances. MSU, on the other hand, gets a quality Big Ten road victory.
Without stats in front of me, it seems like this loss comes down to free throw shooting. UM struggled at the stripe tonight. At one point during the game, they were 4 for 9 and trailing MSU by 5. Two painful misses came at the end of the first half when Gibson's dunk was called back because of an intentional foul on State. Gibson subsequently missed his two freebies. I would have rather had the no-call, as Gibson had the easy dunk. Dylan from umhoops.com said it best during a live blog over at mgoblog: "Murphy's Law."
On the other hand, credit MSU's defense. They managed to challenge Michigan's shots all night long. It was no secret they play extremely solid D. Again, without stats in front of me, I can't imagine UM having shot better than 35-40 percent.
As I mentioned during halftime, Delvon Roe continued to be a force. He was named player of the game after finishing with 14 points and 10 rebounds. That's a decent double-double for a freshman.
For UM, Sims led the way with a very solid night. He finished with 18 points and 4 boards in only 25 minutes. He got into early foul trouble in the second half and had to miss quite some time while MSU continued their onslaught on the glass. Gibson I'm sure gives it his best every night, but at 6-11 you'd expect a little more out of him simply on height alone. Maybe a try-out with the football team will give him some toughness?
Highlights here
*My brother sent me another text during the game saying "Greg Robinson is sitting in front of me." An interesting and exciting night for him I'm sure. I'm glad he got the opportunity to be in the limelight for a couple of hours.*
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