Spartans overcome early deficit behind strong effort from the captains to get to 2nd weekend
Before we get into the recap, I just want to remind you that the Women’s Basketball Team plays their Round of 32 game tomorrow at noon ET. They take on the NC State Wolfpack on the Wolfpack’s home court. The game will air on ESPN. NC State, the #2 seed in our region, defeated Vermont in their tourney opener 75-55. MSU is the underdog, giving 6.5 points. Let’s hope they correct the turnover dilemma they had in the win over Harvard. That will go a long way in securing the upset and punching a ticket to the Sweet 16 in Spokane.
Now that we got that out of the way, here comes the first ever two-writer recap. Mike and O could not agree on who would get to write this, so we collaborated.
Similar to the opener against Bryant, where MSU fell behind 5-0, New Mexico got out to a 7-0 lead in this one. Jaxon Kohler finally got MSU going with a feed from Jase Richardson off the break. The Spartans continued to take advantage of chances to run with Jaden Akins getting buckets at the rim. Tre Holloman added a three plus a drive and finish off the high glass for MSU but the Spartans had no answer for Mustapha Amzil in the early going. Amzil had 10 points at the under 16 break, which didn’t come until nearly seven minutes in, and the Lobos led 16-11.
Tom Izzo was interviewed during the second media timeout and was not happy. He basically said MSU was not guarding, their bigs were ineffective, and the Spartans were going to go small. MSU indeed came out of the break with Kohler, Coen Carr, and three guards but it got worse from there though. Donovan Dent got his first bucket driving into the lane and New Mexico continued to successfully work the paint area. MSU struggled with turnovers and poor shooting and found themselves down 24-14 with 7:57 to go in the half.
Michigan State cut into the lead a little bit and trailed 29-22 with 4:00 to go. It could have been much closer though as the Spartans’ early season three-point shooting woes returned in ugly fashion. Holloman and Richardson both had wide open looks rim out and the MSU was just 1-8 from beyond the arc at this point.
The Spartans were as close as 26-20 after Jeremy Fears drew the second foul on CJ Noland and got MSU into the bonus with 5:02. But Amzil struck again by drilling a three over Coen Carr to make it 29-20.
Michigan State would respond to Izzo’s earlier challenge and start to make things tough for New Mexico’s offense. After Amzil’s triple, MSU got the next six though, ending with a Holloman blow by and lay in that forced a Richard Pitino timeout with 2:01 to go.
The MSU run would continue to 8-0 after the timeout. Holloman made a great recovery on defense to deny a Dent layup and then Fears hit Akins for a slam to make it 29-28.
Nelly Junior Joseph ended the run by drawing contact on Kohler and hit his two free throws. Fouls were starting to mount for New Mexico though. Holloman blew by Dent and drew the second on Joseph and then Frankie Fidler drew a charge on Amzil for his second.
The Spartans had a chance to take the lead but another open three from Akins wouldn’t go and MSU finished the half just 1-9 from deep. Despite hitting only one field goal in the last nearly five minutes of the half, the Lobos took a 31-29 lead into the locker room.
In addition to the poor shooting from three, MSU was only 6-10 from the free throw line. After some initial trouble with turnovers, the Spartans were even with New Mexico at five apiece in that department. The teams were also even in rebounding at 15 but MSU had a 20-16 advantage in the paint after New Mexico’s early success there.
Holloman led MSU with nine at the break and Akins had eight. No other Spartan had more than four and Richardson had a goose egg on 0-5 shooting. After his quick early 10 points, Amzil finished the half with 12 to lead New Mexico into the break.
MSU started the second half with Coen Carr on the floor and it paid dividends. Coen had a massive rejection on the defensive end. Fears hustled to save it and then found Carr running the lane. He drew the foul and his two free throws gave MSU it’s first lead at 33-31.
New Mexico couldn’t find anything on offense and the Spartans capitalized with an Akins lay-up off the break to extend the lead to 35-31. Pitino called time with 17:13 to go and New Mexico would respond.
Joseph spun past Kohler on the block and laid one in and then stole an Akins entry pass intended for Kohler. That led to a layup from Tru Washington to tie it at 35. Kohler responded with a hook shot but Dent answered with a floater to tie it at 37 with 15:38 to go.
New Mexico made it an 8-2 run though after the break and regained the lead on a pretty move from Joseph in the paint. Carson Cooper then got to the line and hit both to end the Lobos run and tie it at 39.
Holloman went strong to the hole and got one to fall to give MSU the lead back and then Akins hit a huge three, just MSU’s second to that point, to give the Spartans their biggest lead at 44-39. After Joseph powered his way past Cooper to cut it to three points, Richardson found Fidler in the lane and Frankie hit to make it 46-41 MSU with 11:55 to go.
It would get to 48-43, MSU and then tighten back up again as the Spartans missed a few chances to extend the lead. Richardson missed his eight shot and was still scoreless with under ten minutes to go. Meanwhile, Joseph picked up his third and fourth fouls for New Mexico and went to the bench. Tru Washington and Dent would carry New Mexico in Joseph’s absence and the Lobos would tie it at 51 before MSU caught some fire.
Akins buried a late-in-the-shot clock three to put MSU back up. The Spartans then forced a turnover leading to a Fidler runout and chance for an and one. Frankie missed the free throw but MSU was back up 56-51. Fidler then struck again, cutting and taking a pass from Kohler before converting a reverse layup to make it 58-51.
The lead extended to 63-54 on a huge Holloman three and they held that going into the under four break. MSU didn’t hit many threes tonight, but they were timely.
It wasn’t enough to put New Mexico completely away though. Strong drives from Dent and Washington made it 63-58. The Lobos were ready for a run and brought Joseph back in with his four fouls after the under four timeout.
He didn’t last long though. In a crucial sequence, Coen Carr drew Joseph’s fifth on a slip to the basket. He hit both free throws to make it a three-possession game at 65-58.
Then, it was finally Jase Richardson’s turn. With MSU still holding the seven-point lead, Richardson had the ball at the wing late in the shot clock and drew a foul to bail the Spartans out. He made all three from the stripe to give the Spartans a ten-point lead. Then, after a New Mexico three got it back to seven points, Richardson rebounded a Fidler turn around that had no chance, put it back in, and got fouled again. His second three-point play put MSU back up ten.
Richardson closed it out with a rebound on a Dent miss to send MSU to the regionals with a 71-63 win.
Michigan State will play Mississippi on Friday in Atlanta after Chris Beard’s team took out Iowa State earlier tonight.
Akins led MSU with 16 and Holloman added 14. Fidler got to double digits with his ten points and some timely second half buckets for MSU. Joseph had 16 for New Mexico while Dent and Amzil each finished with 14. New Mexico reclaimed the advantage in points in the paint, 42-36 but MSU won the rebounding battle 34-28.
Perhaps most important for MSU, even though they only hit 19-28 from the line, they drew 22 fouls on the Lobos while only committing 11 fouls of their own. New Mexico was only 5-10 from the line.
3 Things I Liked:
1. Captains and seniors leading the way. I am going to start this off by gloating that I correctly predicted that Jaden Akins would be our leading scorer in this game. The only four-year player on this roster scored 16 points on 7-11 shooting and 2-4 from three. Jaden’s co-captain, Tre Holloman, was next on the scoring chart with 14 points. Tre, too, sunk two from deep, and also had four assists and three steals. Senior transfer Frankie Fidler had his best game in a long time. His ten-point performance ends a streak of eight games scoring in single digits. And the other senior transfer, Szymon Zapala, while not having a massive statistical night, did score four points, his first in three games along with five rebounds and one blocked shot.
Michigan State certainly came out flat in this game, but we were led by experienced players who have been in these situations before, and we flipped a ten-point deficit into an eight-point win.
2. Winning with defense. New Mexico came into this game averaging 81.2 points per game; we gave up 63 to them. The Lobos were a top-four team nationally in fast-break points at 16.3 per game (MSU was at 16.2); in this game, they only scored three on the break. Michigan State recorded seven blocked shots, one each by seven different players. Special shoutout here to Coen Carr’s two-handed volleyball spike rejection on a Donovan Dent driving layup. And Michigan State had one of their patented shutout stretches at the end of the first half, giving up just two points in the final 4:41 to help cut a nine-point deficit to just two points.
3. With the win, Michigan State advances to the Sweet 16. This will be Tom Izzo’s 16th trip to the Sweet 16. Sweet!
3 Things I Disliked:
1. Coming out flat. While I bragged about correctly predicting Akins as the top scorer, I must admit that I was off on my call that we would score at least 50 in the first half. MSU found themselves down 7-0 after two minutes, and found themselves down ten just past the midpoint of the first half, a deficit they spent the rest of the half trying to erase. We have had plenty of experience this season with teams ready from the jump to give us their best shot and punch us in the mouth. It is frustrating that we are not mentally prepared for it at this point and that we still are susceptible to falling into a big hole early on. Let’s play two great halves in the next game please.
2. A bad game from our best player. At this point, there should not be much debate that Jase Richardson is our best talent, especially on offense. But today, it took Jase 38.5 minutes to get rid of the zero next to his name, and over 39 minutes before he hit his first and only field goal. Until that point, he was 0-9 on his field goals, five of which were triples tries. Hopefully he was just getting the bad game out of his system.
3. Free throw struggles. For the second straight game, the Spartans were well below their usual selves from the stripe. After shooting just under 80% as a team on the season on FTs, MSU has now had two consecutive games where they did not come remotely close to that. In the Bryant game, they went 15-21 (71.4%), and against New Mexico, they were 19-28 (67.9%). Tonight, there were two separate 0-2 trips. This nonsense needs to stop.
But we got the win and we will keep dancing. Next stop, Atlanta. We take on Ole Miss on Friday night at 7:09 PM ET. See you then.
VICTORY FOR MSU!!!
Donaldo, we are returning your scooper to you. Please don’t make us regret this decision.