Analysis: I choose not to pile on Troy Williams

The easy way today would be to pile on Troy Williams.

It was way more Bad Troy than Good Troy in Michigan State’s 88-69 victory over Indiana Sunday afternoon at the Breslin Center.

The Hoosiers are now 1-20 in their last 21 trips to East Lansing and IU has dropped into a second place tie with Maryland at 10-3, pending the outcome of tonight’s Iowa-Minnesota game.

A few days after a great win against Iowa at home, the Hoosiers had a humbling defeat at the hands of No. 8 Michigan State. IU played good for about 16 minutes and then the final 24 was more along the lines of a train wreck.

But the Twitter-universe has been up in arms about Williams. Why is he playing? What are the positives about his game? Is it time to start O.G. Anunoby in Williams’ place and have them basically switch roles?

I’m not going to defend Williams’ play from Sunday. He missed all five of his shots, including three 3-pointers (a shot myself I would rather he stop shooting all together) and was held scoreless in 20 minutes of play. In his last 58 games, spanning the last two seasons, Williams has been held scoreless twice. Both games were in East Lansing against Michigan State.

The last three times he has played Michigan State he has four points total on 2 of 11 shooting.

But I don't wish to over react either.

Is it just a bad matchup for Troy? Maybe. Myself, I think it’s more a case a lot of times of Troy trying to do too much. He needs to let the game come to him, not force shots, not force dribble penetration and then let his athleticism take over. When he does that I think he’s a pretty good player. I think he can really help this team. But when he plays like he did Sunday, he may as well have stayed in Bloomington. There was very little positive in terms of Williams impacting the game on Sunday.

But is the Twitter reaction to Williams at this point justified? Myself, I think it's a lot of people making too big of a deal over one game. Williams normally contributes nearly 13 points and 6 rebounds per game. He makes some high-flying, acrobatic plays that his teammates feed off of. Sure, the Assembly Hall crowd has been known to gasp at time when Williams puts his head down and drives in the open floor, but he doesn't a lot of good things along with his bad moments.

I guess I'm just not ready to abandon all of the good just yet.

But what about Anunoby? Is it time to elevate his minutes? Sunday, he scored eight points and pulled down five rebounds in 17 minutes off the bench. He was 4 for 10 from the field and had a highlight film dunk in the first half. He had a sequence where he had an offensive rebound and a missed point blank put back , followed by another offensive rebound and a second missed opportunity.

The bottom line for a freshman reserve like Anunoby right now, though, is that he needs to take advantage of all of his opportunities. And missing six shots doesn’t cut it. He looks as if he has tremendous upside and I believe he does, but his eight points today should have been 12-14 and then I think you could make a pretty good argument that his minutes should rival those of Williams on a consistent basis.

This is going to be a big week ahead for Williams. Nebraska at home on Wednesday followed by Purdue at home on Saturday. Two big games in terms of IU continuing to challenge for a Big Ten title and two home opportunities for Williams to shine. And we all know that he tends he having bigger games at Assembly Hall.

Williams has scored 20 points or more in three games this season – all at home. 20 against Kennesaw State, 23 against Ohio State and 21 against Illinois. In five of the last six road games, though, Williams has failed to reach double figures in scoring.

So pile on Williams if you must but I think IU’s problems Sunday were bigger than just one player.

IU didn’t finish around the basket at a point in the game where it needed buckets to keep within striking distance.

The matador/standing turnstile defense returned for IU and it wasn’t pretty. I’m not taking anything away from Denzel Valentine or Matt Costello Sunday because I thought they were both terrific, but both got a lot of really easy looks, too.

And once again, this Indiana team remains on a game-to-game basis in terms of what team you’re going to get from one game to the next. Iowa on Thursday was spectacular. Michigan State on Sunday not so much.

Like I said though, a big week is ahead for not just Troy Williams but Indiana Basketball, too.