Encouraged by low turnovers

But the fouls disparity started pretty egregiously. It’s starting to even out a little. Lawson having some trouble fitting in. Dok came to play and Grimes has been the man.

Holy cow, 17 fouls in the 1st half. I know we are being more aggressive since we have depth but that ay be a little too aggressive. Our half court defense was pretty strong although they missed a few shots that were open. The transition defense was not good. Sparky likes to run and man do they do a good job of it. Many of our fouls were because we were not back on transition and were forced to foul. That was probably at least 5 or 6 fouls. We ended up with 5 TO’s which is surprisingly good. Grimes had 2 fouls early and had to sit for a while but then played about 4 minutes without picking up his 3rd foul. Dok also had to sit out the last 8 minutes with 2 fouls. KJ looked pretty decent and hit a three. Dedric was not good on offense but had 11 rebounds. Vick looked like the slump Vick last season. He will not start if he keeps playing like this. Basically, we killed them on the boards (27-17) and had strong half-court defense.

Eleven TOs minus ten steals equals a good first game IMHO,

RC

The good:
>We won.
>Cleaned up our turnover issues.
>Dok/Lawson combo is going to be fun to watch.
>Frosh backcourt didn't look like lost freshmen (quite the opposite).
>1-0, protected out "#1 " ranking against a good MSU team that will have a great season. (we might see them again in March)

The not-so-good:
>Vick was pretty ineffective.
>Dok's FT shooting looked good early, but fizzled under pressue.
>Took a 15 point lead and turned it into a 3 point lead with a minute left (credit Izzo and MSU there...they ain't the kind of guys who'll roll over).

They've got 5 days to watch tape and work on things before facing Vermont and Louisiana next week (probable wins). Then it'll be off to NYC to play Marquette and then Louisville or Tennessee at the Barclays Center under the national spotlight again.