Michigan State proved their mettle against Duke

Last night, I wrote about the possibility of Duke going undefeated this for Beyond the Arc.

The post took me more time to format than it did to actually write out the 742 words.

Why?

Because the possibility of Duke going undefeated has been in the back of my -- and everyone else's -- mind since Kyrie Irving picked Duke and Kyle Singler skipped the league. In other words, Duke's success, their 84-79 win over Michigan State, is no surprise.


Be honest with me for a second. Were you really all that shocked when Irving got his Jay Williams on, putting 31 points on the team most believe will have the best shot at knocking off the Blue Devils come March? I wasn't. We've been hearing for months how good this Irving kid is, how he is the best player on this Duke team. His performance impressed me. He was fantastic and legitimately looked like the best, non-Kemba Walker guard in America. But there is a difference between being impressed and surprised. Irving did not surprise me. That's who he was supposed to be this year.

Perhaps the biggest surprise right now is that Duke has been rolling through their competition despite the fact that neither Nolan Smith nor Kyle Singler are playing their best basketball right now.

What I took away from this game in regards to the Blue Devils is that they are who we thought they were, because anyone in their right mind thought they were good enough to beat Michigan State by five at home.

If we learned anything in this game, its that the doubters that came out of the woodwork after the Spartan's struggles in Maui came out prematurely. Michigan State looked very, very good last night. Korie Lucious had 20 point, 8 assists, and carried the Spartans in the first half. Kalin Lucas struggled a bit at the start of the game, but he still finished with 14 points and showed flashes of why he was the 2009 Big Ten player of the year.

Delvon Roe was in foul trouble and Draymond Green wasn't himself (10 of his 16 points came in the final minutes when the game was all but decided), but Garrick Sherman and Adreian Payne both played well in their time on the floor. They were active on the glass and on the defensive end, which is a good sign for a Michigan State team that is not rebounding as well as we expect them too.

Michigan State took every punch that Duke had and kept standing.

Their problem is that they kept punching themselves.

The stat of the game wasn't Irving's 31 points or Duke's 43% shooting from three. It was the 20 turnovers that Michigan State had that led to 28 Duke points. A number of them were simply mind-boggling to see coming from a Tom Izzo-coached team. The ball as repeatedly thrown out of bounds. Players let a pass go right through their fingers. Draymond Green and Korie Lucious had one of the ugliest back court violations I've seen in a while.

It happened in the loss to UConn as well. Late in the game, Michigan State missed free throws and turned the ball over. They lost that game just as much as UConn won it.

Michigan State will be fine once they iron out those issues.

They will be right back in the mix for the Final Four come March.

And if there is any justice in this world, we will get a rematch of this game in Houston.