Michigan State squandered a chance Tuesday night to pick up a must-win home game against an Iowa team that had struggled for most of the season. The Hawkeyes’ best win on the road (only one of two road victories entering this contest) was at Minnesota back in mid-January.

This disastrous outcome was put in motion with a pitiful first-half effort from the Spartans. Iowa got every look it wanted on offense, and the Spartans happily chucked up and missed many jump-shots. The disastrous defending and terrible offensive execution ensured Iowa held a 12-point half-time lead.

The total lack of energy, defensive effort and attention, complete dearth of passion, and shocking lack of leadership ultimately doomed the team to a half-hearted comeback attempt and a sadly predictable loss. This team, despite starting four seniors and one junior, simply does not have the mental fortitude to "show up" every night (no matter the opponent), and that is a failure on the part of the veteran players, and on the part of the coaching staff who have simply not found a way to turn this team into a winner.

While the Spartans eventually cut the deficit to five points, MSU could never pull within one possession and the Spartans simply are not a group that looks capable of doing much of anything down the stretch of this season as of right now — a season seemingly destined to end with a whimper.

A Spartan team that theoretically had a top-20 defense coming into the contest got exposed by the length, movement, and shot-making of Iowa, as well as the lackluster effort and defensive attention on its own part. MSU does not have the offensive quality to afford anything less than a top-15 level on the defensive side of the ball if it hopes to do anything in the month of March.

The underlying problem with this performance and this team's variable interest in competing and executing its game-plans and skills can be nothing other than a leadership problem. While the Spartans start four seniors, that group simply does not drive the team to the levels it must reach to find success, nor does the senior group hold one another to the standard of past Spartan senior leaders. There is no other way to explain the consistent inconsistency. Even past mediocre Spartan teams have shown more consistent competitive desire--this team must come together and learn how to win in the next couple of weeks or its season will end shortly thereafter.

Malik Hall, Tyson Walker, and A.J. Hoggard finished with 16, 16, and 15 points, respectively, but, clearly, merely-solid performances from this trio simply is not enough for this team to win games against even mediocre teams. The Spartans need great performances from multiple players every night.

This Malik Hall dunk with 2:31 remaining was as close as the Spartans came in the second half; a fact that demonstrates how far-off from the appropriate level of play and competitiveness the team was. MSU would have benefited from a night it needed to secure a winnable contest in order to set up any sort of drama for the upcoming trip to West Lafayette, Indiana just over a week from now to take on the mighty Purdue Boilermakers--a team Tom Izzo has not defeated since the 2021-2022 season.

Leadership, defensive consistency, defensive rebounding, and play from the center position remain the biggest problems for this group of Spartans - the same set of concerns that have dogged the team since the non-conference schedule. Barring a 2015 or 2005-esque March turn-around, this team seems destined to bear these albatrosses, to invoke Samuel Taylor Coleridge, until the season's end.

While Purdue seems an impossible mountain to climb, , Ohio State just defeated the Boilermakers earlier this week in a contest no one would have thought would end in the way it did. Despite that hopefulness, it seems doubtful that Purdue will struggle again, especially at home. A visit to OSU will await the Spartans prior to the trip to Mackey Arena as well.

The final two contests of the season after Purdue will loom incredibly large, regardless of the outcome in West Lafayette. Beating a hobbled Northwestern team in East Lansing and a tricky Indiana team in Assembly Hall will prove vital if the Spartans want to escape the No. 8-No. 9 seed game in the NCAA Tournament that would also bring a second round meeting with a No. 1 seed.

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