Spartans move on to the semifinals
Michigan State began their postseason today with a win over Big Ten newcomer Oregon. The Spartans got contributions from all their starters right out of the gate, as all five had points before the under-16 TV timeout. After that commercial, and with MSU’s first subs in the game, more guys got involved as Tre Holloman and Carson Cooper got on the board. Coen Carr eventually gave MSU their 8th scorer of the first half.
Much of this game was like watching a pendulum go back and forth. After jumping out to an 8-0 lead, Michigan State surrendered an 11-4 run to allow the Oregon Ducks to get within a point. Oregon even took the lead, 17-15, with a little over 11 minutes to play in the first half, but MSU’s Jaden Akins scored five straight to give the Spartans back the lead. From there it was a lot of trading baskets, including the lead being flipped a couple more times, until the under-4 timeout when it was 31-30 Michigan State.
In the last stretch of the first half, the #1-seeded Spartans closed out with an 11-2 run. Like the opening segment of the game, this run featured scoring by five different MSU players. At halftime Michigan State was leading 42-32. Akins was leading the way with nine points, while Holloman and Fears each had six. Cooper also had six points to go along with four rebounds in an impressive first half. Perhaps the most impressive stat after twenty minutes was that MSU did not give up a single offensive rebound, and were leading in total rebounds by a margin of 18-9. The Spartans were 4/6 from downtown, had only committed four personal fouls, and kept Oregon’s 2nd leading scorer on the season, Jackson Shelstad, to a mere two points.
In the second half, the pendulum quickly swung back toward the west coast as Oregon opened with an 11-2 run of their own to get the game back to within 1 point, and Tom Izzo called a timeout with his team up 44-43. After talking things over, the Spartans responded with a 15-0 run to go up 59-43 just before the midway point of the 2nd half. Jase Richardson and Frankie Fidler each had five in that run. Those were Fidler’s only points of the game as he was limited to 8 minutes, but he was the 9th Spartan on the scoreboard. Only Xavier Booker, who was on the court for just four minutes in the first half, went scoreless.
After opening up a 16-point lead, Oregon spent the next five minutes trimming the game to a ten-point contest. The score was 64-54 at the five-minute mark. It was just basket and free-throw trading from there as the margin remained unchanged when the final buzzer went off and MSU earned the win by the score of 74-64. (At this point in my writing, I noticed a spider just inches from my right elbow on my table, so I had to eject him from my house.)
After having just one field goal and five points in the first half, Jase Richardson ended up the Spartans leading scorer with 17 points, though it came on just 4/13 shooting (3/7 from deep) and 6/10 from the line. In fact, Oregon had better shooting percentages on FGs and FTs in this one. MSU was abnormally putrid from the stripe, going 17/29 (58.6%). Akins, Fears, and Carr also reached double digits with 12, 11, and 10 points, respectively. MSU held onto the rebounding battle, 36-29, though they did surrender six offensive boards to Oregon after halftime, four of which went to Nate Bittle. Speaking of Bittle, he led all scorers today with 22. But only one other Duck, TJ Bamba with 11, got past ten.
Michigan State was a little more foul-prone in the 2nd, allowing Oregon to get into the double bonus. Oregon went 10/14 from the line, but MSU doubled them up in FTAs to help nullify their poor percentage on the day.
The Spartans will advance to the semifinals against an opponent to be named later today (either Wisconsin or UCLA). Before that game gets going tomorrow, MSU needs to practice their FTs. Coen Carr needs to work on his dunking as he missed three in this game, including one alley-oop. One of those misses came on a play where he was fouled, but I still wanted to see him create a poster. Actually, the whole team needs to work on their low post game. MSU missed ten shots today inside the restricted area, not counting shots they were fouled on.
And yet, MSU won comfortably in this writer’s opinion. Tom Izzo’s team successfully used the strategy of forcing one guy on the other team to have to outscore the Green & White; that rarely works out for opponents. Both times Oregon went on a big run, once in each half, MSU was able to respond with a run of their own. And the 3-point shooting finished at just under 50% on a 7/15 effort. The good outweighed the bad today, and the Spartans go marching on.
VICTORY FOR MSU!!!