Wait, nobody is saying that MSU playing harder than everyone else is a bad thing. MSU could make it to the FF and win the whole thing just because they play so hard.
You have your reasons for why UL jumped out to a lead but I think it has more to do with UL having a couple of 5th year guards that knew they could penetrate (that's funny because it's UL I'm talking about) at will and make MSU foul. Let's not discount what UL was able to do and it wasn't because your guys were tired. It's okay to believe that there are teams out there that can beat MSU and on a neutral court I think UL beats MSU but that's just my opinion.
Also, you say MSU has a lot of guys that can step up? Who would that be? You don't have anything that any other team in the top 30 has. You have a PG that really isn't a PG, he is the equivalent of our Dominique Hawkins. He's not a guy that can put a lot of pressure on a defense but he can defend.
I think Izzo is doing a great job coaching this team and I think Valentine is in the running for POY but if you didn't see that beyond Valentine and Forbes you have a bunch of hard playing Joes I can't help you. There were a lot of guys that were afraid to shoot the ball last night even though they were wide open. It was a tight game and they didn't feel confident enough to shoot. That's all Boston was saying.
So if you'll excuse me now I have to go barf. I had to complement UL and defend Boston in the same post. Yuck.
Denzel Valentin - POY Candidate
Bryn Forbes - Catch and shoot 3 pt specialist
Deyonta Davis - Michigan Mr. Basketball, All American and will soon start (Izzo always plays upperclassmen in the beginning)
Eron Harris - Avg 17 ppg at West Virginia and is just getting started here
You don't need your entire team to be scorers. MSU has several guys that can step up. I like what I see out of Matt McQuaid and Nairn does well enough to bring the ball up the court and play good defense. Costello and Schilling are great rebounders. Once Schilling is back we will not need to play preferred walk on Kenny Goins at all. I suppose what I like so much about this MSU team is that they have a lot of pieces that play a role and not too many guys with dead minutes. Not everyone needs to score or rebound or lock down defense.
I'm surprised you were so impressed by UL. They don't seem very deep and had like 6 guys get major minutes with a couple more around the 10-15 min range. I don't know man. That's usually a bad sign in college basketball unless you're a team like Duke last year with a potential rookie of the year NBA candidate in waiting and I'm not seeing that on UL.
This is not to take away from Kentucky or any other team, obviously. It's a long season and anything can happen. There just isn't a team that jumps out to me that is head and shoulders above the others like UK, Duke, and Wisconsin last year. Not yet anyhow.