Purdue handed No. 6 Michigan State its first loss in Big Ten play and first on the season since late November winning 73-63 Sunday. The Boilermakers rained down 3-pointers one after another from Mackey Arena, owned the paint on both ends of the court, and wreaked havoc on the Spartans defensively. For Michigan State, lessons were learned the hard way.
"My freshmen needed diapers today," Spartans coach Tom Izzo told reporters after the game. "It was one of those days where I knew they were gonna get indoctrinated."
Izzo didn't have his full roster available to him on the day, as juniors Kyle Ahrens and Joshua Langford were out with injury, which led Izzo to giving freshmen Gabe Brown and Aaron Henry larger-than-usual roles. Henry and Brown contributed a combined six points, but Brown missed a dunk and went 0-for-4, Henry committed three turnovers, and neither settled in against an active Boilermakers frontcourt.
Understandably annoyed by the outcome, Izzo almost certainly felt irked about how his team came out. The Spartans fell behind by 22 points in the game before cutting the lead to four late, but by then, it was too little too late. Michigan State simply dug itself in a hole it couldn't leap out of it.
The Big Ten is no joke, so a loss -- or several -- was almost certainly going to happen at some point. Only once since 2006, when Ohio State did it, has a team in the league won it by only losing once in conference play. It's a gauntlet. But to be blitzed so hard, so early and so often, Izzo has a right to be upset about how it happened.
"All in all, our bigs got their butt kicked," Izzo said. "Give Purdue credit for that."
