Michigan State's many issues, the key to Georgetown and much more

I'm not sure if it's the end of the holidays or the constant pummeling from winter storms, but when I opened my mailbag this week, I inhaled a strong whiff of gloom. Is there no end to this darkness? Where is the proverbial light at the end of this long and ominous tunnel? Didn't John Lennon promise us that it's getting better all the time?

Uh ... maybe not. Let's start with a dose of despair and desolation from the Midwest.

Michigan State has to be the biggest disappointment so far this season. They are collection of talent that seems to fly in the face of how Tom Izzo has built the program. They don't rebound well, the defense is porous, they turn the ball over far too much and they don't shoot free throws well. Any chance they dig themselves out of this or is it a lost season in East Lansing?
-- Keith DeBildt, Cincinnati

Funny how a single day can brighten a guy's mood. There were two results from Tuesday night that I'm sure gave Keith some hope. The first, obviously, was Michigan State's dramatic comeback win to beat Wisconsin in overtime. If the Spartans turn this thing around and make their annual run in the NCAA tournament, you can pinpoint the pivotal moment at the 2:39 mark of the second half, when they trailed the Badgers by nine points before storming back.

The second result was Penn State's win over No. 16 Illinois. The Nittany Lions, of course, also knocked off Michigan State at home last Saturday. If nothing else, Keith can take heart in that old "misery loves company" thing.

Still, I'm far from convinced Michigan State's problems have all been fixed. True, if you take away that loss at Penn State, the Spartans' four other losses came against teams that are currently ranked in the top 12 of the AP poll. But two of those losses, to Syracuse and Texas, came in embarrassing fashion.

Why were the Spartans underachieving up until late in regulation last night? Let Keith count the ways:

• They don't rebound well. Maybe the best part of Tuesday's win was the fact that Michigan State out-rebounded the Badgers by six. Heading into the game, the Spartans were ranked sixth in the Big Ten and 92nd nationally in rebound margin. That is stunning. According to Kempom.com, they're ranked 50th in the country in offensive rebound percentage.

To be fair, Michigan State did lose last season's leading rebounder, Raymar Morgan, to graduation, but this program has lost plenty of players over the years. The board work has never suffered this badly.

• The defense is porous. The numbers don't quite bear this one out. The Spartans are ranked third in the Big Ten in field-goal percentage defense (39.3) and they're fifth in three-point defense (38.5). They're also 16th in Ken Pomeroy's defensive efficiency ratings. Still, it's fair to say the defense hasn't been good enough to overcome the team's offensive problems. Nine opponents this season have shot better than 40 percent from the floor against the Spartans. Not surprisingly, that includes all five of the teams that beat them.

• They turn the ball over far too much. This is the team's biggest problem, and it has been for at least the last two years. Even though the Spartans still have one of the best point guards in America in Kalin Lucas, plus arguably the best passing big man in Draymond Green, they have been committing 15.1 turnovers per game (that ranks 251st nationally). They have already had four games in which they committed 20 or more. They are also ranked 228th nationally in turnover percentage, plus they're eighth in the Big Ten in assist-to-turnover ratio and dead last in turnover margin. So yes, this is a very, very big problem, and I'm frankly not sure it's fixable.

• They don't shoot free throws well. True dat. The Spartans' 65.0 free-throw percentage is ranked 271st nationally, and they're 192nd in free-throw rate. (They were marginally better against the Badgers, sinking 17-of-25, or 68 percent.) This was especially problematic against Penn State, when the Spartans shot 10-for-20 from the line. If they were merely bad from the stripe, they would have won.

It must be said that Lucas is still not the player he was before he ruptured his Achilles tendon in the second round of the NCAA tournament. That's not an excuse, it's a fact. I'm not sure people truly understand just how serious an injury that is, and also how unusual in basketball. Izzo told me last week that he's not sure when Lucas will be himself again because he has never had a player who tore his Achilles. Lucas will continue to get better and stronger over the next couple of months, and that is bound to help.

Still, as noted above, Michigan State doesn't just have one or two problems. It has lots of them, and they touch on a vastly different areas. As they proved Tuesday night, this is still a good basketball team, and not for nothing has Izzo gone to six Final Fours in the last 12 years. The Spartans are going to get better all the time -- but only if they show the same sense of urgency they showed on Tuesday night with two minutes and 39 seconds left in regulation.

Moving on, here's another die-hard fan wallowing in wintry desolation.

What is going on with the Hoyas? Their 1-3 start in the Big East is depressing. Are they not up to competing with the big dogs or is it a temporary slump?
-- Allie, New York

Is it fair to put the fates of a team on a single player? No. But in Georgetown's case, it would be accurate. It has been true for the last three years: As Chris Wright goes, so go the Hoyas, and the 6-foot-1 senior guard from Bowie, Md., hasn't gone very well lately. Though he did put up 17 points in the Hoyas' win at home over DePaul (I have a feeling Allie could score a dozen against the Blue Demons), Wright averaged 6.3 points on 22.6 percent shooting in losses to Notre Dame, St. John's and West Virginia. Overall, Wright's numbers are down from last season pretty much across the board. His assists are up to 5.9 per game from 4.1 as a junior, but he's averaging fewer points, committing more turnovers and converting much lower percentages from the floor (including a woeful 30.4 percent from the three-point range, down from 33.6 last season).

In a weird way, my take on Georgetown is a compliment to Wright. The fact that his team needs him to play well so badly indicates just how good he is. I've always felt his main problem was that he's not a pure point guard, yet he is often asked to run the offense by necessity. When he's shooting well, he's one of the best players in the country, but when he's not, he doesn't make enough plays to make his teammates better. That gets even harder without the presence of a bona fide post scorer like Greg Monroe.

Normally I would tell a fan to buck up, that it's only January, but I can understand Allie's pessimism. Two years ago, the Hoyas entered January ranked in the top ten with a 10-1 mark. Two months later, their season ended with a first-round loss in the NIT. Last season's squad held it together to finish 23-10, but it lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Ohio. (To be fair, Wright had 28 points in that game.) The bottom line is, nothing this team does from here on out will surprise me, for better and for worse. They can beat Pittsburgh tonight and go on to make the Final Four, or they can fall apart again down the stretch. Anything's possible. The only thing I know for certain is that no player will have more of an impact about what happens than Chris Wright.

Enough of the pessimism. Let's get to some more cheerful missives.

Could a non-AQ, like BYU or SDSU, get a No. 1 seed in the tournament much like Memphis a couple years ago?
-- Shane Hale, Las Vegas

I think it's very unlikely that either one of those teams (or any other mid-major this season) will be able to snare a No. 1 seed. In 2008, Memphis had a nonconference strength of schedule that was ranked eighth in the RPI. This year, BYU's is ranked 34th and San Diego State's is 77th. Memphis only lost one game that year, and that was to Tennessee, which at the time was a top-five team. BYU has already fallen to unranked UCLA.

Of the two, San Diego State conceivably has the better chance because it hasn't lost yet. If the Aztecs run the regular season table in the Mountain West, they'd have a pretty good chance. That's how Saint Joseph's got a No. 1 in 2004 out of the Atlantic 10. (Though the Hawks' nonconference schedule was ranked first in the RPI that year.) But I can assure you, Shane, that neither of these teams is going undefeated in the Mountain West. If nothing else, they have to play each other twice.