The Michigan State Spartans had big dreams for this week's trip to California and potentially a lot to accomplish. The Spartans wanted to celebrate Coach Tom Izzo's 70th birthday last Thursday first by tying Bob Knight's conference win record with a win at USC and then by breaking that record three days later with a win at UCLA.
The Spartans dreamed of being the first Izzo team to start the season 10-0 and then 11-0 in conference play. They dreamed of returning home from the west coast on a 15-game winning streak and a commanding lead in the Big Ten race.
Instead, Michigan State got a rude awakening on such a winter's day Saturday afternoon in the form of a 70-64 loss at USC. It was the first time that the Spartans have tasted defeat since they tasted Thanksgiving turkey. As we will see below, the Spartans are no longer the favorite to win the Big Ten regular season title.
What went wrong in Los Angeles and what does the loss mean for Michigan State's Big Ten odds? Let's explore these topics starting with the four factors analysis of Saturday's loss.
Four Factors for Michigan State at USC
Figure 1 below provides an analysis for Michigan State's 70-64 loss at USC on Feb. 1, 2025.
Why did Michigan State lose?
As Figure 1 shows, that Spartans did absolutely nothing well against the Trojans. None of the factors on either offense or defense were above Michigan State's seasonal average (which is usually highlighted in green).
The Spartans did OK in offensive rebounding, defensive field goal percentage, and defensive free throw rate by keeping the Trojans under their season averages, but that is the only part of Figure 1 that is remotely positive. In the other five categories, the Trojans surpassed their season averages.
As a result, the raw stats for both teams were all almost identical. Michigan State had a narrow advantage in rebounding (34-to-33) but a narrow disadvantage in turnovers (13-to-11). As a result, the scoring opportunities for both teams were identical. Both teams shot 24-for-57 from the field and both teams shot 19 free throws.
The difference in the game was that USC hit two more three pointers than did Michigan State (7-to-5) and critically, USC had a higher free throw percentage (79% to 58%). That is all it took to lose on the road.
From a full roster point of view, none of the Spartans had a particularly good game, but none of them were terrible either. It was just an all-around sleepy performance from the entire roster in every phase of the game. USC did enough things well to keep Michigan State at arm's length for the entire 40 minutes.
Rarely, if ever, so far this season has this roster had such a sluggish performance. The fact that it came just two days after flying 2,200 miles is at least suspicious, even if Izzo does not want to admit that it might have been a factor.
Either way, Tuesday night's game at UCLA now takes on even greater importance. Once again, the Spartans will try to tie the conference win record on behalf of their coach. More importantly, the Spartans need to demonstrate that the loss at USC and the effort that caused it were an isolated incident and not a slump.
The last two Izzo teams that started 9-0 hit the skids in early February and wound up losing three games in a row. Both of those teams recovered, won the Big Ten, and eventually advanced to the Final Four. The 2024-25 Spartans have similar dreams and similar potential. They just need to wake up from their nap.
Updated Big Ten Odds
Let's now check in on the updated Big Ten standings and odds, starting with the new and improved enhanced Big Ten standings.