Can Tom Izzo Scheme Michigan State Past North Carolina in Championship Game?

(Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

On the defensive side of the ball, Izzo opted to put UConn, 67.8% free throw shooters as a team, on the line. He zeroed in on Hasheem Thabeet and Jeff Adrien, and they responded by shooting a combined 8-of-14 from the charity stripe.

Kemba Walker, normally a 71.5% FT shooter, obliged Izzo as well by going 3-for-9. Hard to win when three of your key players are clanking 12-of-23 free throws.

Also notice that Izzo used his deep bench early to send UConn to the line without saddling any of his key players with foul trouble.

Ten of Sparty’s 25 team fouls were committed by reserves who played minimally, including Idong Ibok, who committed 3 fouls in 6 minutes of play, and Draymond Green, who fouled out in 12.

So now the question arises of how Izzo will deal with North Carolina. Clearly he is a coach who is able to identify an opposing team’s weaknesses and design a gameplan to exploit them. The problem with the Tar Heels, of course, is that they have very few weaknesses, if any.

Nevertheless, I can assure that Michigan State will show up on Monday night and, quite possibly, will make this one just a little bit closer than people think.

Here’s one hypothesis on how they might do it. First off, it says here that Izzo will reverse course and do everything in his power to avoid the type of up and down pace that he courted against UConn.

Whereas UConn’s strength was in half-court defense, and their intimidating but relatively immobile bigs could be exploited in a speed game, the Tar Heels, big men and all, relish the opportunity to run the court.

And while they are by no means a poor defensive team, UNC has nowhere near the type of shut-down half-court defense that UConn presented.

Look for Izzo to do some version on Monday of what everyone expected on Saturday- slow things down, work the half court sets, run the shot clock down and make the Tar Heels work on defense. Most college teams would run great risk of sloppy play and turnovers in executing such a plan, but Izzo’s team can do it.

The Spartans will have to hope that they can wear down the Heels in the half-court, perhaps get Hansbrough in foul trouble, and, most importantly, prevent UNC from getting into the type of speedy rhythm that Villanova allowed them to slip into.

Defensively, Michigan State cannot pursue the same fouling strategy employed against UConn, as UNC is a 75% FT shooting team. Hansbrough makes his living at the line (85%) and the primary ballhandler Ty Lawson is no slouch (79.5%).

However, the Spartans can at least hope to somewhat successfully match up against North Carolina in the half-court game. Hansbrough killed State (25 points, 11 boards, 13 for 13 FT’s) in a 35 point Tar Heel romp at Ford Field in December. One catch: Izzo’s best interior defender, Goran Suton, was out for that game. The 6-10 Suton could match up well defensively with the 6-9 Hansbrough.

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