MSU From 1000 Feet

UNIMPORTANT ASIDE: Big Ten refs are… trying. The over and back rule requires both the ball and your entire body to be across the line to kick in.

lolver and back

Cumong man.

Anyway. On to the Titanic Matchup Of Teams Missing Key Large Persons.

It really does not seem like Payne is going to play. Joe Rexrode keeps assuring everyone that this is not a mind game being played by Izzo so Payne can storm out of the locker room Willis Reed-style. For one:

Rexrode: on Adreian Payne, "he's doing nothing [in practice]... I think it's very unlikely he'll play, and may not play for a few weeks."

I was under the erroneous impression that Payne's thing was an ankle issue; it is instead the nasty and persistent plantar fasciitis.

Even if Payne does dress, having missed so much practice time would leave him rusty and out of shape, matched up against a guy who just loves to run the floor for buckets. I know it's hard to believe MSU will leave the guy on the bench, but despite that it seems like the thing to do is look at this game like he's not available.

Kaminski and Costello step into starting roles.

Meet the new frontcourt, then. State has four large persons available for their frontcourt spots: junior Alex Gauna, sophomore Matt Costello, and freshmen Kenny Kaminski and Gavin Schilling. Kaminski is the only one with any sort of perimeter game* and is likely to get all of his minutes at the 4; the other three guys will split 40 minutes at the 5 and there may be some sections of the game where two are out there.

We discussed Kaminski a bit yesterday: he's 6'8" and sits in the corner hitting threes on offense. That's about all he does; his 6.5 DREB rate is in the Nnanna Egwu realm, and while you would expect that to uptick in the absence of Dawson, Kaminski is usually replacing him and most of his playing time has come recently, with Payne out.

Schilling, Costello, and Gauna are all the same guy. This guy is 6'9", has usage in the Matt Vogrich range, fouls a lot, and gets rebounds. The most notable statistical outliers are a bunch of blocks from Costello and the fact that Schilling is on pace to foul out in 18 minutes, should he get that much PT.

Finally, MSU will probably check out a lineup with 6'5" Denzel Valentine at the 4, because Kaminski isn't going the whole way and Valentine provides offense none of the tall guys do.

*[For those that remember the early MSU blitz of Michigan targets in the class that eventually became Stauskas/LeVert/Albrecht/McGary/Robinson, this is an inversion of expectation. Kaminski was the one guy Beilein did not offer and Costello was supposed to be the Beilein-style skilled post who can take threes.]

Goodbye to all boards. Well, not all boards. But lots. When Michigan meets Michigan State, Michigan gets murdered on the boards. The last two years:

• 2012-13 @ Breslin: M gives up 14 OREB, a 37% rate, loses by 23.
• 2012-13 @ Crisler: M gives up 19(!) OREB, a 50% rate, wins by one despite hitting zero three pointers. How in the hell did they win that game?
• 2011-12 @ Breslin: M gives up 12 OREB, a 48% rate, loses by ten.
• 2011-12 @ Crisler: M gives up 9 OREB, a 36% rate, wins by 1.

In most of these games Michigan responded to this blizzard of second chances with two or three OREBs of their own. It has been an enormous blowout for MSU in this department for four straight games, and it's a miracle Michigan pulled out the two home games by one point despite the bombing. MSU went into each game expecting a massive possession advantage and got it.

A repeat was already looking less likely this year as MSU exchanged Derrick Nix for Denzel Valentine. MSU's OREB rate on the season—one accumulated against a number of tiny nonconference opponents and mostly with the services of Payne and Dawson—is a pedestrian 141st nationally, a big drop from top-50 output the last two years.

Now with Dawson and Payne out MSU has lost more than half of their putback attempts on the year—35 of their 62. The rest of MSU's rebounding numbers are deflated by Dawson and Payne picking up so much of that responsibility, but I think the expectation going in here is that this should be an even matchup. Dawson's OREB rate is elite; they're replacing him with guys who don't provide even half of what he does; they were already just average.

They can D, probably. MSU's defense is tenth in Kenpom and when you click over to just the conference stats they leap to first thanks to huge block and TO rates and excellent two-point defense. Then you look at their schedule.

Big ten offenses come in bands this year.

• ELITE: Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin are in the top five.
• REAL GOOD: MSU and Minnesota are 26th and 16th, respectively.
• GRIM: Penn State is the only other top 100 offense in the league and they're at 88th; OSU, Purdue, Nebraska, Illinois, and Indiana follow, ranging down to 161st.
• NORTHWESTERN: The Wildcats are 325th.

MSU has played only teams in the grim zone save one against Minnesota in which they gave up 75 points in a 73-possession OT game. Michigan is on a whole different level from MSU opposition so far, leading the league by five points in eFG%.

And they're now shooting. Previously-reliable bricklayer Keith Appling was 25% from three as a sophomore and 32% as a junior; now he's at 43%. This is the major change in his game from a year ago; he has also incrementally improved his A:TO ratio. That plus Travis Trice and Kaminski's blazing introduction has seen them hit nearly 40% of their threes in Big Ten play, and that seems like a more realistic number than their season average given the increased prominence Kaminski will have going forward.

They still don't take a ton of threes—they are Michigan State, after all—but this is going to look like a four-out-one-in offense that will be extremely disorienting to MSU fans.

Gary Harris is kind of good. Surprise! He's more of a shooter than Stauskas is these days, with more than half of his shots from behind the line. He's only hitting 33%, though. Harris is also their best perimeter defender and can expect to draw Stauskas duty, at least until he picks up a foul. I don't think Izzo wants to match up a foul magnet like Stauskas up against his most critical offensive player all night.