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Welcome to The Final Four Is Not on the Schedule discussion board. A forum for the serious and casual MSU fan. Opinions welcome – stay respectful.
1. Hall appears to be closer to coming back.
2. Akins is showing progress.
3. Hauser is more consistently good than almost anyone would have imagined.
4. Our two most important players, Walker and Hoggard, played a rare subpar game on the same day, but that is unlikely to happen again.
5. Connor and Kohler are showing that they belong on the floor.
I really would not be surprised to see this team go on another 5-6 game winning streak, even through a tough schedule, when Hall gets back. I am not predicting it; it just wouldn’t surprise me.
By the way, TJD is my favorite non-Spartan big man in the conference. I really wish he had chosen to be a Spartan.
I agree and that's a great list. Fingers crossed on Hall but that'd be huge to get him healthy for the post-season. The game is really starting to slow down for Kohler and that's going to be huge for us.
Is it bad that I don't really get that upset about road loses anymore? Just protect home court and then play it out on neutral sites in March.
Given the unpredictability of this season, I think not getting upset over a road loss against a solid conference team is the rational response. Every week, it seems, we see a big upset, and in this case MSU wasn’t favored. I do hope that MSU is on the positive side of an upset or two before the end of the season without ever being on the negative side.
I still think Purdue is susceptible. If Edey gets overworked or if those freshmen guards hit a wall, they could lose a few games.
Paul K from SpartanMag offered that some of our guys are have subpar games because of an accumulative effect of having played so many 35-plus minute games. This might explain why Hauser, Hoggard, and Walker have been missing shots right at the rim. I believe with Hall back yesterday, none of them were over 32 minutes. I am hopeful that after Sunday’s game these players are completely recovered and the 2nd half of the season results in some positive surprises.
On the other hand, I was actually quite happy with Hauser’s game yesterday. My favorite moment was when he grabbed a rebound in middle of a big group. He went up and snatched the ball with authority. His defense continues to impress me given where he was last year.