Healthier Langford finding his groove for Michigan State

East Lansing — While Michigan State was happy that Miles Bridges looked more like the old Miles Bridges on Wednesday night, he’s not the only freshman who is starting to find his groove.

While Bridges was outstanding early in the season before missing seven games because of an ankle injury, the progress has been much slower for guard Joshua Langford. The former McDonald’s All-American missed Michigan State’s two exhibition games with a bad hamstring and has taken a long time to get back to 100 percent.

In Wednesday’s 65-47 victory over Minnesota, Langford had his best performance yet, at least as far as his coach was concerned. And while Tom Izzo joked it was because Langford’s dad flew in from Alabama to watch the game, he said it was more about the steady progress Langford has been making now that he’s healthy.

“Josh has been better since Christmas,” Izzo said. “I think the biggest thing is you don’t see the limping and the dragging of that foot. It’s so hard for me to figure out these injures and what it does to a kid. You see now a more athletic guy that’s getting to the hole and getting some rebounds.

“I just thought all-in-all he did some things, ran the court, came off ball screens. He’s got a great mid-range game, so that was a big plus for us.”

Langford finished with 13 points, was 6-for-9 from the field and looked as quick and aggressive on offense as he has all season.

And, it didn’t hurt that his dad was in town.

“Yeah, of course,” Langford said. “When your dad comes in you want to show him what you can do, how much better you got since the last time he’s seen you. So it was great to see my dad in the stands.”

Langford knows he can be a big part of the offense, but he credited his teammates and a renewed focus on defense for turning things around.

“I feel like my teammates did a great job of finding me, getting me to the right spots, and I just converted,” Langford said. “I feel like I came in defensive minded — just trying to get myself going on defense. That helped me to play better on offense.”

Phone tag

Bridges looked like a different player on Wednesday and some of that could be attributed to his new approach on social media, something he said he “lives on,” during his free time but also something he admits might be distracting to him and his teammates.

In fact, he agrees with Izzo that it could be a factor in the Spartans' recent slow starts.

“Coach blames our phones,” Bridges said. “I kind of agree with that. We’ll be on our phones listening to music and we’ll be on our phones before games and we’ve got to come out thinking right about the game.”

Izzo has long been critical of social media and the pressure it puts on college players. Twitter, in particular, draws much of his ire. He’s never told his players they can’t be on social media, but in the past few years players have taken it upon themselves to take a break.

Denzel Valentine would usually delete the Twitter application from his phone until the season ended and Bridges is going to give it a shot, as well.

“I’m thinking about getting off social media until the season is over,” he said. “That’s gonna be hard for me because I know I live on there. That’s what I’m going to try to do.”

It seemed to work against Minnesota as Bridges scored 16 points, grabbed six rebounds and blocked four shots in 22 minutes.

Gophers stymied

Michigan State held Minnesota to just 17 points in the first half, the fewest it has allowed in a half all season.

The Spartans twice allowed 23 this year, in wins over Northwestern and Mississippi Valley State. It was the key in the quick start against the 24th-ranked Golden Gophers.

“We have to give credit to the coaches, too,” sophomore Kenny Goins said. “The game plan they drew up for us was just unbelievable. We really executed top to bottom. Every guy that came in came in focused and came in with energy, and we got the job done.”

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