Spartans End West Coast Trip 0-2, Cannot Overcome Turnovers in Defensive Slugfest

**Pauley Pavilion- Los Angeles, CA**

Michigan State was looking to rebound off a poor showing at USC, against a defensive minded UCLA squad and actually had a 12-5 lead early. Things looked immediately better with Jaden Aikins and Jeremy Fears Jr hitting early 3’s and the defensive holding the Bruins to 5 points through the first media timeout. From there, it was a slow downhill decline as shots stopped falling, ball handling became sloppy (16 turnovers to 13 assists) and suddenly securing initial rebounds resulted in offensive team rebounds (5 of UCLA’s 8) resulted in extra possessions for the Bruins.

Despite outrebounding UCLA by a large margin in the second half, the Off Team Rebounds allowed in the second were all huge in keeping the game tied or slight lead to UCLA. MSU would have a pair of brief leads after their 12-5 lead and felt like they were playing against themselves as they improved their free throw shooting but struggled in 2-pt FG shooting, poor possessions resulting in shot clock violations, turnovers or ended up with poor shot selection with unrealistic chances of a make.

Credit to UCLA, they went after the guards, battled inside for loose balls and hustle plays but in-the-end, did just enough to hold off MSU and a potential overtime. In the final 45 seconds, MSU had the ball after a timeout and never got a shot off, followed by a rather lucky bank shot by UCLA and the final possession was a sloppy play design with 8 seconds left, resulting in an erratic, fade-away 3-pt attempt by Aikins that really never had a chance.

MSU has bigger problems that are exploding to the surface that their remaining opponents will certainly take note of and look to exploit further. The Spartans clearly are lacking: a clutch, go-to scorer; their perimeter guard defense is too small to guard length on the outside, resulting in several good looks from deep with slow close outs; inconsistent box outs from the forwards in the paint and at times, struggle to fend off poachers once grabbing a board that lead to jump ball possessions or turnovers; lastly, they do not have a legitimate PG who can create for himself off the dribble (i.e. Tyson Walker, Cassius Winston, Shannon Brown, Kalin Lucas, Korie Lucious or a Drew Neitzel type).

Frankie Fidler has been the only stopgap defensively but has limited minutes given his inconsistent offensive contributions. He himself has had a horrible 3-pt shooting year since transferring in, totaling a paltry 9-52 3-pt FG (17.3%). His prior year at Omaha totaled: 37 mpg, 20+ ppg on 45.2% FG shooting, 35.6% 3-pt and 6.3 rbp. His minutes have been cut in half, overall FG % is down to 37.8% and only 3.6 rbp.

Unless this team can figure out a better approach on the perimeter and overcome their poor outside shooting, this team will continue to struggle heading into other top-30 matchups against teams of longer length in the backcourt and athletes in the paint who have better situational awareness on the glass to out hustle and anticipate better than MSU’s forwards. If they continue to rely on Aikins in late, shot-clock situations, this seemingly going to setup an early March exit for Coach Izzo and his Spartans.

TEAM STATS:

Spartans: 20-53 FG (37.7%), 5-22, 3-PT (22.7%), 16-19 FT (84.2%)

Bruins: 21-60 FG (35.0%), 7-28, 3-PT (25.0%), 14-19 FT (73.7%)

Record/Rankings & More:

18-4 (9-2, 1st-Big Ten) Rankings: #9 AP / #9 Coaches Poll
Updated KenPom- Off: 26th / Def: 13th. Adjusted Tempo: 122nd. SOS Net Rtg: 47th 7.850

Updated Bart Torvik- ADJOE: 25th/ADJDE: 13th / EFF.FGD%: 45.7 (17th) / ORBD %: 36.7 (18th) & DRBD %: 26.0 (29th)

Other Metrics: KPI (16th), ESPN SoR (7th), ESPN BPI (16th), T-Rank: 13th — #5 in FT % (80.3%), #9 in FTM/game (18.7) and sit 16th with 5.2 bpg

FULL KenPom Stats: https://kenpom.com/index.php

FULL Bart Torvik Stats: https://barttorvik.com/#

FULL T-Rank Stats: https://www.warrennolan.com/basketball/2025/net-teamsheets-plus#google_vignette

NEXT ON THE CLOCK:

Oregon Ducks, Saturday 2/8 at 12:00pm EST on FOX