Northwestern-Michigan State Final Score: Spartans dominate NU, 68-44

Northwestern fell 68-44 to Michigan State on Tuesday night. It was undoubtedly NU's worst performance of the season. But even that doesn't come close to describing just how pitiful it was. We'll keep the rapid reaction brief, because there's really not much to say.

- Northwestern's 10-game losing streak is the program's longest losing streak since the 1999-2000 season. The Wildcats' coach that year? Kevin O'Neill.

- The Wildcats trailed 38-14 at halftime. It's pretty tough to put into words what went wrong, because it was a lot of things. Here are all the crazy stats from those first 20 minutes.

- Northwestern couldn't get anything going on offense whatsoever. A month ago, the Wildcats ran really good offense and consistently got both open layups and open three-pointers against Michigan State in East Lansing. But Tom Izzo adjusted, and shut down everything Northwestern did well in that first game. Open looks at the rim were non-existent for the Wildcats.

- Northwestern went to the 2-3 zone pretty early in the first half after having success with it against Wisconsin. But after a few good possessions in it, there was a timeout, and out of the timeout, Michigan State started to pick the zone apart. Northwestern's rotations were slow, and the Spartans' shooters made the Wildcats pay.

- Tre Demps was the only Northwestern player who could do anything offensively. We'll have a separate post for player grades, but don't expect many of them to be good.

- Northwestern made a mini-comeback late to make the final score semi-respectable. But really, the entire second half was irrelevant. The Spartans led 56-21 at one point, so the final score wasn't even really an accurate reflection of just how one-sided this game was.