Saddle Up: In search of Kalin

Saddle Up is our nightly look at the hoops your TV wants you to watch. Here’s Tuesday night’s rundown. (In lieu of a video preview for tonight’s game, which I had planned to do until a cold made me sound like Tom Waits on Saturday morning, here’s an extra-beefy edition of Saddle Up). No. 6 Purdue at No. 10 Michigan State, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN : Kalin Lucas picked a bad time to be injured. OK, obviously Lucas didn’t decide to be injured. Obviously, he’d prefer to be on the floor at all times. But say the Ghost of Ankle Injuries Future visited Lucas in his sleep one night in October (hey, it could happen — haven’t you ever seen “A Muppet Christmas Carol”?) and told him he would have one ankle sprain this year, and that he could point to the Spartans’ schedule and decide when it would be, I’m betting he wouldn’t have picked this stretch of the Big Ten season. A Lucas-less Michigan State team was forced to into an orange-colored cauldron on Saturday. Now the Spartans are staring down a crucial matchup with Big Ten rival Purdue. They’re also looking at a potential three-game losing streak and a loss of their solo hold on the Big Ten’s top spot. It’s not that Michigan State can’t beat Purdue without Lucas, whose status will be a game-time decision. The Spartans are at home, which is always nice; heck, Indiana almost beat Purdue on the Hoosiers’ home floor last week. And Michigan State showed some things without Lucas in their loss to the Illini — namely, that they can still score, that they have decent, untapped depth and that Draymond Green is more versatile than you think. And Purdue doesn’t exactly wow you with its guard play, at least not at the point guard spot, the one major hole in the Boilermakers’ lineup. But it will be tough if he’s not able to play. The Spartans committed 20 turnovers at Illinois on Saturday, and it was obvious why: Kalin Lucas wasn’t on the floor. Without him, the Spartans still got out in transition, but in the half court they frequently looked lost, settling on long jump shots from guards Chris Allen and Durrell Summers . When he’s on the floor, Lucas gets a majority of the Spartans’ possessions , and he’s efficient with them. When he’s not there, the Spartans are left to score by committee. It won’t help that the Boilermakers, after a three-game losing streak toward the beginning of the conference season, are beginning to hit their stride. Purdue has rattled off five straight wins — including a win at Illinois and a tight home victory over Wisconsin — and have looked impressive in doing so. Purdue isn’t a statistical powerhouse. Their defense is stalwart but not elite, and their offense overwhelms you with its efficiency

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Saddle Up: In search of Kalin