Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State's 64-63 loss to Purdue – and life minus Malik Hall

1. Spartans remind us that, even minus Malik Hall, they’ve got the goods to compete. But that's a heartbreaker.

EAST LANSING – Michigan State still has some really good Big Ten players. Guys who can win a lot of games in this league. Beat anyone on any given night. Monday’s heartbreaking 64-63 loss to Purdue was a reminder of that — that Tyson Walker can carry a team offensively, that A.J. Hoggard, at his best, is as good as any point guard in the league, that Joey Hauser and Jaden Akins would be on the court for everybody in the conference, that MSU can still put a really strong five on the floor.

That Purdue's Zach Edey is the probably the player of the year nationally.

Losing Malik Hall is going to hurt (more on that below.). It probably did Monday afternoon against a Purdue team favored to win the league. But the rest of the Spartans put up a heckuva fight, propelled by Walker, who, anyone who watched Monday might also believe is the national player of the year.

He scored an MSU-career-high 30. Needed one more shot to drop — a last-second 3-point try deflected by Ethan Morton. Or one less bucket by the 7-foot-4 Edey, whose spin and score on Mady Sissoko with 2.2 seconds remaining — his 31st and 32nd points — gave the Boilermakers the win, after Walker’s pull-up jumper with 10.8 seconds left put the Spartans in front.

Edey, who also had 17 rebounds, isn’t the reason MSU lost this game. The Spartans largely played him straight up, so he got his numbers. But that kept Purdue's shooters in check — though one can argue double-teaming Edey on the final possession might have been the right play. MSU lost this game, however, because it turned the ball over eight times in the first 17 minutes, creating a hole it had to climb out of, because Fletcher Loyer — Foster’s brother — gave the Spartans fits down the stretch, including two free throws in the final minute, with MSU ahead by one, courtesy of an iffy touch foul called by Larry Scirotto.

This would have been a massive win, given the Big Ten standings (MSU is 4-3, Purdue 6-1), the schedule ahead and the absence of Hall, likely for a while. MSU has to bounce back emotionally from this quickly. The schedule ahead is unforgiving.

“Hang with these guys. They give you their money's worth,” Tom Izzo said, thanking a Breslin Center crowd that he described as just like old times. “Mistakes, we made some. But I tell you what, they competed. There aren't many times I go into a losing locker room and thank my team for competing. … It was because in my heart, I believe we competed well enough to win the game.”

2. Hall’s injury changes MSU’s future this season – and possibly beyond?

I don’t know that Michigan State beats Purdue with Malik Hall — the Boilermakers are 17-1 and have beaten a number of quality teams. But it’s a different game. Because MSU is a different team, a clear top 20 team with him. And, before Monday, somewhere in the wilderness of the 30s and 40s without him. The metrics bore that out.

The question — on the heels of the Spartans’ 64-63 home loss to the Boilermakers — is what it means for MSU’s season if Hall is out for an extended period with a left foot injury, as Tom Izzo suggested might be the case.

“We still don't know exactly what's going on,” Izzo said. “But the specialists just looked at it today. He had a meeting with him by zoom during our game. So, I mean, nothing looks good in the immediate future. But whether it's the full year or not, we don't know. I just felt like we gave everything we got (against Purdue) except for the beginning.”

I don’t know that the Spartans can keep that up.

In a league with 12 legitimate NCAA tournament contenders, the deepest Big Ten in memory, the Spartans go from darkhorse contenders and I think a likely top-four or -five team the league to a team that might not be a sure thing for the NCAA tournament — beating Purdue would have helped that cause tremendously. Because, in this Big Ten, there are almost no wins you can count on and very little separation from second-place Rutgers to 12th-place Ohio State.

MSU, at 12-6 overall and 4-3 in the Big Ten, should be safely in the NCAA tournament with 10 conference wins, at 19-12 overall, even before the Big Ten tournament. But six more wins in the next 13 games is no guarantee for a team that, minus Hall, even with advantages in the backcourt, is every bit in the throes of the massive middle of this league. The next five games are Rutgers on Thursday, at Indiana, Iowa at home, Purdue on the road and Rutgers at Madison Square Garden. With Hall, I’d pick MSU to win three of those. Without him it gets a bit more dicey. What helps the Spartans is that, at Breslin Center, they’ll be in the fight every night. We saw that Monday in a game that could have gotten away from them. And they’ve shown they have a propensity to close well, albeit usually with Hall on the floor.

We’ve seen MSU minus Hall before. This next stretch doesn’t have to be the same as the first eight games without him, even if there are aspects of Hall’s game that the Spartans will undoubtedly miss, especially on the defensive end, where he’s a calming and unifying presence and versatile player. For one, the Spartans have Jaden Akins this time. Perhaps Pierre Brooks’ season has a rebirth — when he’s hitting shots and attacking the glass, he can help. Maybe the young big guys keep growing to become a net positive, with Carson Cooper’s length and quickness becoming an asset.

Or maybe Hall’s absence will be too much, too often over time.

For as long as he’s out this season, for perhaps the rest of the season, the Spartans’ ceiling is little less. He’s irreplaceable in that sense. Just like any of MSU’s top four or five guys are for this team.

Maybe it helps next year’s team — if Hall doesn’t want an injury-ruined senior year to be his final go-around. In terms of MSU having a true national title contender, anything that brings Hall back — likely with A.J. Hoggard and Jaden Akins and the high-end recruiting class they have coming in — is a win for the program’s dreams of another championship. That would be the positive spin on a day like this. Because, frankly, there’s nothing else positive about losing Hall.

3. Freshman thoughts — the Purdue edition

Jaxon Kohler might have hit the biggest shot of his short MSU tenure Monday, when, with the Spartans trailing 14-5 and perhaps in danger of getting run out fo their own building, he hit a fall-away jumper from the post to end a 10-0 Purdue run. That was a good moment for Kohler, who’s no longer automatically the first freshman big man to sub in for Mady Sissoko. Kohler had a couple solid defensive moments against Zach Edey and then a couple times when it didn’t go as well, including getting lost on a ball screen that resulted in an Edey dunk for a 20-11 Purdue lead.

Carson Cooper took his turns against Edey, too, providing more defensive length, but less of a base than Kohler or Sissoko. His best moment came after rebounding an Edey blocked shot and calmly using the glass to score at the rim in traffic. Cooper has a knack for that. A good sign moving forward. He held his own as well as could be expected. It wasn’t a disaster during his 12 minutes playing Edey largely one-on-one, including minutes deep into the game, with Sissoko in foul trouble. Cooper’s development is looking like an important storyline this season.

Tre Holloman didn’t play a ton. MSU needed A.J. Hoggard, Tyson Walker and Jaden Akins every minute it could in this one. Holloman did draw Purdue guard Braden Smith’s second foul midway through the first half, staying on this hip as Smith tried to drive by him. That was an important second foul, right after Kohler’s shot, with both plays helping to stabilizing things for the Spartans. Izzo went back to him for Purdue’s final possession, putting Holloman on the ball defensively, a sign of Izzo’s trust in his freshman guard.

MORE GRAHAM COUCH: Michigan State hockey has Munn buzzing again, back on track for NCAA tourney bid after strong series against No. 5 Penn State

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

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU basketball falls to Purdue, 64-63, loses Malik Hall: 3 quick takes