Couch: Michigan State needs Miles Bridges to be more like Grayson Allen

CHICAGO – Michigan State’s basketball team needs a killer. It doesn’t have one right now.

Duke has one, Grayson Allen. Perhaps the most detested kid in college basketball, but a cold-blooded killer in Tuesday night’s 88-81 Champions Classic win over MSU. Allen scored 37 points, eight in the final 2 1/2 minutes, a great senior setting the stage for the season on a big stage. Like Denzel Valentine did here two years ago.

Valentine could be a killer. I don’t know that Miles Bridges can be for MSU. I don’t know that he has the game yet or personality or sweat equity. Allen does.

“That’s what seniors do in college basketball — they always bring out the best in the best in their (biggest) games,” Bridges said Tuesday night.

MSU needs Bridges to become, as a sophomore, what Allen is as a senior, what Valentine was. 

“For sure,” Bridges agreed. “Because I have to lead this team. And the other sophomores, as well.”

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It’s got to come from Bridges first. And it’s a tough ask. His NBA athleticism and frame make him an unlikely college sophomore, one with more hype than perhaps his game is ready to support. His sophomore year is likely his final year at MSU. But he’s still a sophomore, with a lot of basketball to learn and experiences to be had. 

He’s right about the other sophomores, though. This team needs a toughness to it, a grit that it didn’t have Tuesday night. Duke, with four freshmen and senior, Allen, had more of it down the stretch. Mostly Allen. A great senior, as MSU knows, can be enough.

MSU’s own freshman, Jaren Jackson Jr., was arguably its toughest player, coming through offensively in several critical moments as the game was starting to get away from the Spartans. He and Bridges both finished with 19 points, as did sophomore Nick Ward. 

Point production didn’t beat MSU. Consistency and carelessness did. And Allen. MSU wound up shooting 51 percent from the field. But rarely did its offense look like it had a plan in the half-court against Duke’s 2-3 zone. Too often the Spartans were impatient. Too often they turned the ball over on the pass. Way too often they let long rebounds from Duke’s shots find their way into the hands of the Blue Devils guards.

And still, MSU could have won this game. The Spartans led 75-73 with 4 minutes left.

I’ve never seen Izzo seethe so earnestly after a Champions Classic loss. I’ve never seen him so dejected on Nov. 14. 

“I’m sick of holding my own,” he said.

He thinks he has the squad to win a national championship, and the sort of team that can take down Duke. Izzo is 1-11 all-time against the Blue Devils now. He has so many pieces this year. Just not a killer. Not a Mateen Cleaves or Draymond Green. No Valentine. Or Allen.

All are remembered for their senior seasons. Allen will be, too.

“He’s become a great player, a great college player,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said of Allen.

“There’s been some neat things Duke has done over the last couple of years, and one of them is having that kid Cook,” Izzo said of Quinn Cook, Duke’s senior leader on its national championship team three years ago, a team that otherwise featured three one-and-done freshmen when it beat MSU in the Final Four. “When they were so good, a senior really rose up. I loved that kid. And tonight Allen made some big shots. That’s what seniors do. And I thought that was the difference in the game.”

MSU has enough size and skill and depth to overwhelm 90 percent of its schedule. To beat Duke, if the Spartans get another shot, they’ll have to be different — in approach and maturity against the zone, in consistency offensively and in temperament. 

In the days leading up to the Champions Classic, MSU’s players spoke of how badly they wanted to beat Duke. Bridges, I’m sure, wanted this as much as he’s wanted any game he’s ever played. But he didn’t play with the ferociousness that Green or Valentine did when they really wanted something. Keith Appling, for all his flaws as a point guard, would rip your heart out to get to the rim. 

In the middle of a 17-2 Duke run in the first half, I wondered where MSU would go for the bucket they badly needed. Bridges turned the corner on the dribble and had the rim in his sights. Instead of exploding toward it and finishing or forcing contact, he tried a difficult low-angle layup with his off hand and missed. It was a tough play to make against a long defender. But Bridges has a better finish in him.  

Bridges made 7 of 15 shots and 5 of 10 3s — a couple big ones, too. He didn’t play as well or smart or desperate as his numbers.

After MSU’s final exhibition game, I asked Izzo what could derail his team from its dreams. His immediate response:

“Right now, it’s (do we have) the leadership that’ll grab you? Like Miles and Tum (Tum Nairn) — Tum’s a great leader, but when things go wrong, is he a (Mateen) Cleaves and (Travis) Walton? Is he going to grab guys and say (get it done)?”

Nairn doesn’t play enough to be that guy. It has to be Bridges. For some players, like Valentine, that takes time. It didn’t happen for him until he had the game to back it up.

For others, it’s just not in them. I’m not sure yet about Bridges.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.