Michigan State Basketball: Spartans' Blueprint to Slowing Down Jahlil Okafor

Most of the time, teams don’t beat Duke freshman Jahlil Okafor. They survive him—just ask Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, whose Spartans face the Blue Devils superstar on Saturday in the Final Four in Indianapolis.

At 6’11” and 270 pounds, Okafor—a national Player of the Year candidate—essentially has his way when he wants and how he wants. A true center in every sense of the word, Okafor defines the position with power, power and more power.

He won’t get European and shoot from range too often—if ever. That’s not his game. He’s not going to hot-rod down the court with gazelle-like fluidity, either.

He’s going to pound the glass and lay claim to the paint.

Then he’ll repeat.

Izzo respects that in a player.

“Jahlil is a dominating big who can score on the block, you know, and even in the 20 years I’ve been here [I haven’t seen many like him],” said Izzo, who heavily recruited Okafor. “Post players in general—you know, every 5-man wants to be a 4-man and shoot threes. Jahlil is who Jahlil is—he’s comfortable in his own skin.”

Physical prowess highlights Okafor’s “complete package,” but he’s also incredibly intelligent. Combating such a player requires a “very sophisticated” plan of action.

“When they throw him in, we’re going to pray that he doesn’t make those shots and we’ll call it a day,” Izzo joked.

It’ll take a group effort and tactful rotations in order for the No. 7-seeded Spartans to hinder Okafor, who enters the weekend averaging 17.5 points and 8.7 rebounds per game.

Typically, attacking the core produces desired results. Once the middle is compromised, the outside crumbles. That’s the theory, anyway. But it may not apply to Okafor, who doesn’t have to fill up the scoring column to leave a giant footprint on the game.

“Well, Jah’s been incredibly important for us the entire year, because no matter how many points he scores, he’s the focus of attention,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “He’s the top person on every scouting report and people are already thinking of double-teaming or triple-teaming or how they’re going to defend him.

And as a result, it opens things up, whether he’s scoring or not. It opens things up for the other guys. His stats—and they’re really good, outstanding stats—don’t really tell the story of how important he is for us because he creates better stats for everybody else on the team.”

The Blue Devils average 80.6 points per game, the fourth-highest mark in the NCAA, and hit 50.2 percent of their field-goal attempts, the third-best mark in college hoops.

However, during their past three games, they’ve averaged 65.5 points and converted 38 percent of attempts from the floor.

This past weekend, Okafor—who has 11 double-doubles on the year—scored nine points and grabbed eight rebounds during a 66-52 Elite Eight win over No. 2-seeded Gonzaga. Prior to that, he scored six points and snagged eight boards during a 63-57 Sweet 16 win over No. 5-seeded Utah. He scored 26 and 21 during the previous two games versus No. 8-seeded San Diego State and No. 16-seeded Robert Morris.

Okafor, to an extent, can be limited in some capacity. He just needs to be pushed to the outside, forced into bad shots, lured into traps and pushed to dribble more than usual.

He’s a great player, but he’s not invincible.

“I mean, not necessarily—I’ve gone against a lot of great bigs, you know, throughout the whole season," said Spartans sophomore Gavin Schilling, who aims to stomp out “deep-post touches” for Okafor.

“Like I said, I played against him early on in the season and I think we did a good job of defending him back then, so we’ve just got to do the same job as we did back then or even better now. We’ve played against him already so we kind of know what to expect.”

If that’s the case, Schilling should expect Okafor to make eight of 10 shots from the field and finish with 17 points—that’s what he did on Nov. 18 when the Blue Devils beat the Spartans 81-71.

And that one was in Indianapolis.

Meanwhile, the Spartans won't know what's in store until they're face to face with Okafor. The general consensus is this: They're not scared of Okafor, but they're aware of his ability to quickly exploit the opposition.

“He’s an elite player,” said Spartans senior Branden Dawson, who will also be a part of Izzo's sophistication. “He’s one of the most elite players in the country. A lot of guys talk about ‘How can we stop him?’

But we’re really not worried about 'stopping’ him because he’s going to score. He’s going to get his points, he’s going to get rebounds. It’s just, you know, containing him and really not—for our big guys, Gavin [Schilling] and Matt [Costello]—just not getting in foul trouble and getting frustrated.”

Follow Bleacher Report’s Michigan State Spartans basketball writer Adam Biggers on Twitter @AdamBiggers81.

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand via press conference, press release or other media availability.