MSU faces pair of tests against Purdue, Indiana

EAST LANSING - The most important week of the season for Michigan State basketball deserves a name - Championship Week, Revival Week, Indiana Twice in One Week, something.

Junior captain Travis Walton has an idea.

"It's 'Family Week,'" Walton said. "We have to come together as a family."

It may sound trite in the context of big-time college basketball, but for these Spartans, it is as important as any jump shot or rebound. Tonight's game at Purdue, followed by Saturday's at Indiana, will be tests of MSU's ever-scrutinized team chemistry.

Ask any MSU player and he'll tell you, it has not been where it needs to be. The No. 10 Spartans (20-3 overall, 8-2 Big Ten) need at least a split this week to stay in the league race, and they believe their ability to maintain cohesion will tell the story.

"It's incredibly important, especially on the road," senior center Drew Naymick said. "Instead of 15,000 (fans) with you and 30 against you, it's reversed. ... We have to play together."

So what exactly does that mean? And what exactly are the issues? MSU is on course for one of the best seasons in its storied history, but two of those three losses were surprising upsets at Iowa and Penn State.

Much has been made of the officiating in those games, which resulted in a combined 80 free throws for the Hawkeyes and Nittany Lions, to 25 for the Spartans. Regardless, MSU did not play to its potential.

Asked Monday to outline what specific basketball aspects his team must improve to succeed this week, Izzo mentioned rebounding, turnovers and free throws, but finally said: "Nothing."

"More grit and toughness," Izzo said. "Just more of that."

In other words, MSU needs an intangible boost.

Players-only meetings are common in this program, and the Spartans had them after the exhibition loss to Grand Valley State and the Iowa loss. The most recent one, the day after the Penn State defeat, lasted three hours.

Izzo has said more than once this season that he likes the way his players get along and interact off the court. But Walton said the meeting - which also involved MSU's assistant coaches - was emotional and personal, addressing some conflicts he said "kind of linger on the court at times."

"It's not about liking each other," Walton said. "At this type of level, it's about respecting each other. ... That's part of putting everything together. At times we're not playing tough. At times we're not rebounding. At times we're turning it over. At times we're not communicating."

No one would get into specifics on who was called out.

"That's why it's a players-only meeting," senior guard Drew Neitzel said.

But the logical clash on this team would be between the veterans and the talented trio of freshmen.

The Spartans were a tight-knit, overachieving unit last season.

Freshmen Kalin Lucas, Chris Allen and Durrell Summers have added athleticism and scoring punch to the lineup. They're also still struggling, Allen and Summers in particular, to execute MSU's team defense.

That and much more was addressed at the meeting.

"It was very emotional," Allen said. "People were talking from the heart. We'd never really talked about our problems before, family stuff, things like that."

Said Summers: "I think guys just got to see where everybody is coming from. When you first meet guys, they have a little barrier up. I think now all the barriers are broken."

The freshmen were implored to buy in to what the veterans are saying.

"It was partly about that, but it was about everybody as well," Summers said. "Some guys have went their own ways, and we talked about that's maybe why we've come up short of championships in past years."

The air was cleared. The Spartans came out feeling that progress had been made, and that future adversity on the court will be better handled.

There will be plenty of tough situations tonight and Saturday to test that progress.

"It's a week to kind of show ourselves a little bit," Walton said.

"A lot of teams are going through this type of thing," Neitzel said. "A lot of teams have a lot of freshmen playing. But all the problems don't revolve around the freshmen. That's not fair and it's not the truth. We've just got to be in it all for each other."

Contact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@lsj.com.