Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State's 64-62 home loss to Northwestern – including the crisis of identity facing MSU

1. The Spartans, at 14-3, suddenly faces a crisis of identity

EAST LANSING – Uh-oh.

The Michigan State basketball season that not long ago looked to be humming along toward Big Ten title contention, now is teetering toward something else. MSU is suddenly facing a crisis of confidence, questions about its toughness and mindset and about the roles of a couple of its best players.

For a 14-3 team that just lost its first Big Ten game, things are unraveling. And Tom Izzo will tell you, they have been for a while.

It’s not just that MSU lost to Northwestern, 64-62, Saturday at Breslin. It’s how it all unfolded. It’s that Marcus Bingham Jr., the Spartans’ trusted interior presence until about a week ago, didn’t play most of the second half — not until he was needed for a last-second inbounds play and then to try to bury two free throws to tie the game. He missed the front end of a one-and-one and that was it, leaving Bingham standing at the free throw line, hands on his head as the Wildcats celebrated.

This is the sort of home loss that kills you in a Big Ten title chase. But the Spartans have bigger problems than that right now. They’ve got to find themselves again. They've got to become the team they were a couple months ago that was looking to prove itself. They’ve got to figure out who they can count on. They need that to include Bingham and point guard Tyson Walker, who ran the show at crunch time, but doesn’t look like quite the player he seemed to be becoming. His numbers: eight assists and two turnovers in 25 minutes don’t show the edge he seems to be missing.

The more significant issue is Bingham, who remained engaged from the bench but played just 12 minutes, finishing with three turnovers, two blocks and two rebounds. No matter how efficient Julius Marble is offensively — and he was great in that regard Saturday, with 18 points on 7-for-7 shooting — Bingham is MSU's best rim-protector and presence. Players like Northwestern's Ryan Young see smaller centers or power forwards playing center, like Joey Hauser, and find an awful lot of confidence in the post quickly. Young looked like an all-conference big man against the Spartans. He's a good player. That's still a problem. The Bingham of November and December is the answer to that problem.

"That's been an enigma for me," Tom Izzo said, unhappy with Bingham's motor early in the game and, by his reaction, one second-half jump shot.

MSU isn’t playing offense with a purpose right now and isn’t defending at a level that can make up for it. And, worst of all perhaps, the Spartans aren't rebounding. A couple days after a Minnesota team that struggles on the glass out-toughed the Spartans on the boards, Northwestern did it, too — again — out-rebounding MSU 40-35, including 17-8 on the offensive end. The Spartans' best moments in the second half were when they made the decision to rebound and just go get the ball. In the end, it was Northwestern most often bringing it down from its highest point or chasing down long caroms. It didn’t help that MSU’s 7-footer, the man with the 7-foot-5 wingspan, was most often out of the game.

“This is no surprise,” Izzo said. “We've been living on borrowed time. There's no surprise to this. We were playing very well until we started to think we're an offensive team.”

MSU has five days now before it travels to Wisconsin and then to Illinois. Five days before it gets real. Or so we thought. Northwestern and Minnesota seemed plenty real. The Spartans, right now, look like a team that thought it had arrived after a terrific first two months and then forgot who it had to be to be a cut above the Wildcats and Gophers.

MSU needs Bingham to again be the guy out to prove this is his time. It needs Walker feeling good about himself. It needs to play like the team that wants it more. Rebounding is a lot about want-to. That wasn't the MSU team we saw this week.

2. Freshman thoughts – the Northwestern edition, Part II

MSU right now looks like a team that might need all of its freshmen to help shake it from this slump. What guys like Jaden Akins and Pierre Brooks lack in seasoning, they have in fearlessness and desire to prove they ought to be on the court. And we saw that Saturday.

I think it goes without saying at this point that a big part of MSU’s ceiling and fate in February and beyond is whether Max Christie can elevate his game to sophomore-level Max Christie and have some take-over moments. He had a tough day offensively, hitting 1 of 7 3-point tries, though his three blocks and six rebounds told the story of a kid that stayed in the fight. But Akins and Brooks also look like they could play impactful and deciding roles in this season. This isn’t an MSU team with overwhelming pound-for-pound talent. And when it loses confidence or its edge or the other team realizes it can run with MSU just fine, the Spartans can look a bit lost for an answer. We saw both Akins and Brooks be part of that answer Saturday.

When MSU fell behind 38-32 late in the first half after a 7-0 spurt from Northwestern, Akins checked back in with 1:06 until halftime and, on MSU’s first possession, he quickly took the ball and flew to the basket in transition, drawing a foul. It was the sort of give-me-the-ball-I’ll-do-this play MSU needed at that exact moment.

Brooks, who played three first-half minutes, didn’t hesitate to shoot or attack. On his third possession in the game, he missed a 3 from the left corner and, after getting the ball back, drove the baseline and drew a foul. Then he hit both free throws to tie the game at 21.

Both of these guys have a swagger to them. I didn’t think that would be part of what MSU needed from them this season. But right now, it is. And bursts of confidence are welcome.

3. Gabe Brown reaches must-be-on-the-court stature

Perhaps it spoke to how much trouble MSU was in and that Tom Izzo knew it. It also spoke to Gabe Brown’s place on this MSU team. He’s become essential personnel. Too important for normal rules and substitution patterns to apply.

We saw that late in the first half Saturday when Brown picked up his second foul with nearly 4 minutes until the break. Izzo about 95% of the time will have a player with two fouls sit the rest of the half, no matter how important that player. The more important they are to MSU’s second half, as Izzo usually sees it, all the more reason to sit them. Even if he trusts the player not to pick up a third foul, he doesn’t trust the officials not to make an error or call a cheap one.

Izzo left Brown in anyway. And Brown kept playing defense, including one rather physical possession as his man tried to drive him deep toward the basket. MSU was plus-nine with Brown on the court Saturday. Every other player other than Marble and Bingham was at zero or minus something.

As this team goes through a bit of a midseason identity and performance crisis, Brown is keeping the floor from collapsing, it seems. His shooting from outside and defense had carried MSU for awhile Saturday — including a pro-range 3 late in the clock to tie the game midway through the first half and a baseline 3 to give MSU the lead shortly thereafter. On one defensive possession, he had a block, then scrambled out to the open shooter, forcing a drive and travel.

He didn’t shoot the ball well in the second half — or enough, probably — and that hurt MSU on Saturday. Still, for this team, right now as it searches for itself, Brown has to be out there.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Michigan State basketball falls at home to Northwestern: 3 quick takes