Illinois is in a bad place.
The Illini are without leading scorer and Most Valuable Player Terrence Shannon Jr., who is suspended for rape charges.
How will they react Thursday night against Michigan State?
Well, they're 2-1 since Shannon left, with blowout wins over Fairleigh Dickinson and Northwestern, but a loss to Purdue by five points.
Honestly, it's not bad.
Marcus Domask, a transfer from Southern Illinois, is developing into a star, dropping 58 points in the past two games.
He excels as an isolation scorer, which is very important for Brad Underwood's iso-heavy offense.
So the question arises: Can Sparty stop Domask one-on-one? The answer is a resounding yes.
Despite all of its problems on offense, Michigan State boasts a solid inside defense.
Malik Hall, Jaden Akins and Cohen Carr are excellent wing defenders, and the Spartans rank in the top 40 nationally in isolated PPP allowed (0.78).
The Spartans are allowing just 25 paint points per game, which ranks them in the 94th percentile of DI teams. Dormask is primarily an interior bucket getter and is expected to struggle against Sparty on the block.
Additionally, the absence of Shannon, a ball screen initiator and fellow shot creator, will be evident in this matchup.
Illinois' relief option is to cut and post Dain Dainja and Quincy Guerrier. But then again, Michigan State boasts a strong inside defense.
The Spartans are better at defending cutters (1.07 PPP allowed, 78th percentile) and have a better than average DI against posters (0.82 PPP allowed, 58th percentile).
On the other side of the court, Sparty runs a guard-centered, ball-screen-heavy offense led by an elite backcourt of Tyson Walker and AJ Hoggard.
Unfortunately, they aren't getting anything from their frontcourt and are inefficient at scoring inside.
This means opposing offenses can space the floor, play aggressively on the perimeter, and thwart good 3-point shots.
Therefore, Michigan State's offense revolves around dribble drives and Walker mid-range shots. That's an inefficient way to play modern basketball.
To make matters worse, Illinois is an elite midrange defense, ranking 11th nationally in midrange PPP allowed (0.73).
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Even without Shannon, Illinois still has individual defenders who can guard on islands, specifically Doumasku, Luke Good and Coleman Hawkins.
Michigan State's relief option is to pop Walker out from deep off the ball screen.
However, Illinois is also good at defending actions off ball screens (0.97 PPP success rate, 16th nationally) and is also a good run man from the 3-point line (22nd nationally in 3-point success rate).
What exactly does this mean?
That means low-scoring rock fights.
While Sparty will be strong in the midrange and will be shut down by Illinois, the expectation is that Illinois will not be able to generate interior isolation buckets against Michigan State.
The past few Illinois vs. Michigan State battles have been higher than the sum total, and that was the case with Shannon.
Without him, Illinois loses its most viable avenue on offense.
And Sparty has shown true interior offense over the past few games, especially against spot-up legend Joey Houser.
Michigan State won't be able to get through open lanes without his spacing and driving.
Therefore, I'm willing to bet on Under 148.
I see these teams playing in the mid-60s and ending up around 135 points total.
