Texas vs Michigan State

The "neutral" NBA arena of the Detroit Pistons might as well have felt like the Roman Colliseum filled with Detroit ...Lions. Izzo State took advantage of their NBA home court and Texas's inability to hit their usual amount of shots, and exposed them for what many thought were their vulnerability.

So the big question now for the Texas Longhorns is: Are they the team that lost to Michigan State or the team that beat UCLA in SoCal? The doubters will no doubt point to the Izzo State game, others may point to them being somewhere in between. How many people think they are the team that beat UCLA in SoCal? Remember they barely won that game, UCLA made one of their patented comebacks that fell short, but to their credit, the Rick Barnes Experiment managed to withstand the Bruins onslaught.

So what about Izzo State? Izzo is now playing faster and the more fun style of play is attracting more skilled recruits to the Breslin Center (see Delvon Roe, 2008 class). Well, for one thing, Michigan State is a better team with Kalin Lucas at the point. This is something that Spartan fans may be in denial of, and coaches tend to be "loyal" to their trusty upperclassmen, instead of handing the reigns to a freshman. Unless of course the freshman happens to be Derrick Rose or OJ Mayo or Jerryd Bayless. What usually changes this? Sub-bar play and losses. Losses are one thing with coaches that tramps all other cards. If they are losing, everything is fair game (to change).

Needless to say I still think that Drew Neitzel is severely overrated. His hype is based on ...non-basketball factors (please feel free to read between the lines!)

So where do I see these two teams? Well I need to see more for both. Michigan State is not as bad as I thought, and what I need to figure out for Texas is which team are they when the shots or the run-and-gun style is not working. It's not even January 2008 after all :)