It hasn’t taken long for MSU’s men’s basketball season to go from feeling relatively safe to dangling off of a mid-January cliff in Big Ten play. After the huge road win in Madison, the future looked bright. After late game struggles against Illinois, it would have still seemed at least somewhat bright, but then Malik Hall re-injured his foot, and the hope began to dim as the severity of Hall’s injury remained unclear.
Then Purdue happened. A 64-63 loss punctuated by a whole lot of irritating officiating, a late Tyson Walker three that became a long Tyson Walker two, and a Zach Edey bunny in the final seconds to put the Boilers on top for the final time hurt a whole lot.