IU’s title hopes kissed away

A fleecing. A trouncing. A complete Sparty whitewash.\nThere are many ways to characterize IU’s 103-74 loss in East Lansing Sunday afternoon, but none of them does justice to the way the Spartans wholly dismantled IU’s hopes of stealing its first road victory against Michigan State since 1991.\nTom Izzo’s squad finally put it all together on Senior Day against the Hoosiers, looking like the team many envisioned winning the Big Ten this year and making IU players appear as if they were playing defense on roller skates in the first half. \nThe lead grew quickly from 10 to 20 to 30, all before halftime. Michigan State finished the half with 59 points. That’s 17 more points than they scored the entire game at Wisconsin!\nThe Spartans consistently beat the Hoosiers down the court and shot a mind-boggling 77.8 percent in the opening frame. Sure, most of those shots were layups, dunks and alley-oops, but they also hit nine shots from beyond the arc. This is a team that shoots the least amount of 3-pointers in the Big Ten!\nTo say IU looked sluggish sitting back in their first half zone would be an understatement. The Hoosiers defended as if their feet were encased in cement.\nThere is no sugar-coating this one. This loss stings. Although not mathematically eliminated from winning a share of the Big Ten title, the Hoosiers will most likely find themselves on the outside looking in when the regular conference season concludes. And a loss like this makes you wonder if there are residual effects from Kelvin Sampson’s resignation. The Hoosiers played a good basketball team, an inspired basketball team, and they couldn’t even pretend like they belonged on the same court in the first half. Izzo’s complaint with his team this year is that the Spartans have lacked toughness. Sunday, it was Dan Dakich’s squad that lacked a backbone.\nThe blame can’t just lie with the players either. IU’s coaches didn’t make the adjustments on defense when it became apparent that the Spartans were looking to push the ball up the court. By the time they switched up the defense in the second half, the game was already out of reach.\nThe best thing for Hoosier Nation to do is to put this one behind it as quickly as possible – rip the Band-Aid off instead of tugging at the edges. It hurts either way, but the less time spent worrying about the pain of this loss, the better. There’s little (if any) redeemable value in a blowout like IU suffered on Sunday.\nAs Izzo subbed out starters Drew Naymick and Drew Neitzel late in the game, both seniors received ovations from the crowd in their final home game and bent over to smooch the Spartan logo at midcourt. It was a fitting gesture after commendable careers. IU could only watch as their title chances were kissed away.