LOUISVILLE — Foster Loyer’s eyes darted back and forth, looking everywhere and nowhere. It was one of those wonderfully manic moments in a basketball game. All necks arched upward, looking at the scoreboard, calculating the situation. Michigan State, the No. 9-ranked team in the country, led plucky Louisville by one point with 36 seconds remaining. MSU was in position for a solid road win. Louisville was still trying to scratch a marquee home upset for first-year head coach Chris Mack. The 22,090-seat KFC Yum! Center drummed up a soundtrack.
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Loyer stepped forward for a pair of free throws, aligning all the appropriate storylines. He’s a freshman. Not only that, but a freshman who’s still very much trying to prove he can play at this level. For all of his questionable attributes, namely, his size and defense, free-throw shooting is his one hallmark. He once made 119 straight in high school. He finished his four years at Clarkston High as a 90.0 percent shooter — 611 for 679 from the line.
So Loyer dried his hands, pushing his palms down the top of his thighs. The heat was up.
You probably know by now that Loyer missed the front end of a one-and-one. He bent his knees and clanked one straight off the back iron, setting up a frenzied close to the game, one that ended with the Spartans losing 82-78 in overtime. Tom Izzo, standing at the scorer’s table, casually leaning back, rolled his eyes as the ball caromed off the rim. Gotta be kidding me.
Michigan State didn’t lose because of Loyer. He was only on the court for this weighty moment because 1) Matt McQuaid, MSU’s default backup point guard, was home in East Lansing nursing an injury, and 2) Cassius Winston committed the cardinal sin of fouling out from a game he could not afford to foul out of. Sitting in his locker afterward, Winston rubbed his forehead and said, candidly: “I mean, I don’t even blame him. It probably felt like the whole world was on his shoulders at that moment. That’s just a tough situation to throw him into, you know? And I apologize to him for that. I should’ve never put him in a situation like that. Overall, I think he handled it pretty well.”
These are the lessons of life in the deep end. Because one way or another, every freshman has to learn how to swim when the oxygen runs out and the surface of the pool feels just out of reach. Loyer played 1 minute, 43 seconds in the first half and sat for the entire second half. Then, with 4:01 left, he was asked to close out the game. Welcome to college basketball, lad. There were good moments. There were bad moments.
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They were all, though, invaluable.
“You can’t force things at this level and there are some things you just have to learn,” Winston said. “This was probably like 10 times anything he’s ever seen before.”
Loyer sat hunched forward in his locker, replaying the final four minutes, plus the OT period. He wasn’t despondent, as much as he was vexed — the feeling of being prepared but not performing. “I don’t want to say that it was anything I wasn’t ready for,” he said. Loyer didn’t attempt to deflect or defer. He admitted, though: “It was a tough position right when I went out there, just because of the intensity of the game, and the situation that was going on.” He shook his head.
While the missed free throw was a lesson in pressure, there was much more to take away. This was a masterclass in the late-game conditions of college basketball, stuff you only get by living it.
A minute after checking into the game, with MSU holding a 62-61 lead, Loyer found himself open within the flow of the Spartans’ offense. He caught a pass on the wing, wide open — a shot he’s made approximately five million times in his life. Yet, Loyer, who scored 2,222 points on 258 made 3s in high school, passed the ball to Kenny Goins, an 8-for-29 career 3-point shooter, in the corner. Goins passed the ball back to Loyer, still wide open. Loyer hesitated and … passed it back to Goins. The pass slipped past Goins, who wasn’t expecting it, for a turnover.
Izzo flailed on the sideline. “Shoot it!” he screamed. Loyer made a shooting motion at the bench. He knew.
“It’s a tough spot when you come off the bench and the first time you touch the ball you should shoot it,” Loyer said later. “That’s something where I have to be ready to shoot that ball. That’s the one part of my game that no one can really take away. I need to do better there. I need to shoot that ball and make that shot.”
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The ensuing possession exacerbated things. Loyer chased Louisville guard Ryan McMahon along the top of the perimeter. McMahon caught a pass on the wing and squared up. He jab-stepped, put Loyer on his heels and launched an uncontested 3. It dropped, putting Louisville up 64-62.
Izzo opted to cycle Loyer and Xavier Tillman in and out for offense/defense down the stretch. Loyer showed why with 1:43 left. He fought for space against guard Khwan Fore, found an alley for a baseline drive and banked in a runner despite contact. Michigan State up, 66-64.
These are the spots where Loyer can feel uncomfortable. As a freshman, he’s adjusting from being a primary scorer in high school to being the fourth or fifth option on any given possession. In that moment against Snyder, he acted on instinct.
“I’m a little in-between on that right now,” Loyer said afterward. “It’s like, when a (teammate) gets rolling, regardless of what play we call, I’m gonna try to set that teammate up and put him in a place to succeed. For me right now, it’s taking what the defense gives me and doing whatever I can, whether it’s getting to the free-throw line or making an open jump shot.”
It was 67-66, MSU leading, with 36.7 seconds left when Izzo drew up a play off a sideline in-bound near half court. Louisville blew it up by sending a two-man trap at whoever caught the in-bound pass. It was Loyer, and he promptly found himself in a sea of arms and legs upon catching the in-bound. Loyer couldn’t kick a pass to an open man, and backed himself into a corner. Louisville was whistled for a foul. It would be Loyer’s first free-throw attempt of the night.
“I can count on one hand the amount of times I missed a free throw like that, late in a game,” Loyer said. “It’s something, I’m going to shoot 98 percent anytime I’m in the gym. It was a big moment. We were up one, we had the chance to go up three. To miss the front end, that was crucial. I put my team in a bad position. It’s something that I have to accept. I can’t let it weight me down, but I have to take it. I have to go make the next one.”
People will remember the free throw, but forget the on-a-dime pass Loyer bounced to a streaking Kyle Ahrens for a layup with four minutes left in overtime. That’s the deal in this game.
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Izzo, meanwhile, might remember the 3:13 mark of OT the most. With Michigan State leading 71-70, Loyer fouled McMahon, an 88.4 percent career free-throw shooter, roughly 35 feet from the basket. He applied pressure that didn’t need to be applied. Izzo reeled on the sideline, aghast. Later he said, simply, “Can’t happen. That’s just not what we do.” But Loyer did it, and Izzo lit into him as McMahon toed the line and easily sank both free throws.
This was another lesson for Loyer — what it’s like playing for Izzo when the floor turns to lava.
“I knew what I was getting when I came here,” Loyer said. “That’s not something that’s going to bother me. He’s doing that because he wants to push me to be the best that I can be. You have to take what he’s saying, not how he’s saying it. When I make a mistake, I expect that. That’s going to help push me to go help my team the next time. It’s something I’m ready for. It won’t take me out of the game.”
In the end, Michigan State lost Tuesday because of a slow start and a woeful first-half performance (32.4 turnover percentage and .941 points-per-possession). That, coupled with McQuaid’s absence and Winston and Joshua Langford combining to go 8-for-25 with seven turnovers.
Loyer, though, wore the loss on his face. “I pride myself on being ready,” he said.
He didn’t much want to hear that it’s impossible to be ready for something you’ve never done before. If there’s a consolation, it’s that he’s been there now. Good lessons learned the hard way.
“It was important, just because the situation and the score; when I went in there were four or whatever minutes left, and it was ball-busting time,” Loyer said. “For me to be in that moment, and have that experience, I know next time I’ll be more prepared than I was this time. I’ll be ready. I’ll make the plays.”
(Top photo: Joe Robbins / Getty Images)