INDIANAPOLIS – Again, almost missing a big advantage. Again managed to leave with a victory.
Barely. And with perhaps one of the worst crashes in the career of Tom Izzo.
The Michigan State basketball team’s 20-point lead in the second half against Maryland was cut to two on two separate occasions Thursday night thanks to seven losses in the final at 2:26. But Tyson Walker led, spun and hit a short jumper, Max Christie grabbed two key defensive rebounds and made four free throws in the last 31.1 seconds, and the Spartans continued to push ahead to a 76-72 win in the second round. Big tournament. Tenth Tournament.
“We have to make sure we can’t turn down leads like that,” Christie said. “At the end of the day, we’re happy with a win when it’s a win. But in the end it was terrible.”
No. 7 seed MSU (21-11) won for the third time this season and scored a second win in five days over No. 10 seed Maryland (15-17).
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The Spartans will take on No. 2 seed Wisconsin at 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
How to avoid disaster
MSU moved up by as much as 10 points in the first half of Thursday and 20 points early in the second after missing a big lead over the Terrapins twice this season. On Sunday, the Spartans took a 22-point lead but needed to hold on for a 77–67 win. In their first meeting on February 1 in Maryland, they scored 15 points but got off with a 65–63 win.
And like the previous two, the Terrapins bounced back, cutting the score to eight from 1:58 to play off free throws from Fatts Russell and Erik Ayala.
The Spartans turned him over with four outright possessions against the Maryland press. And then again when Joey Houser threw a nearly out of bounds pass followed by his fifth foul 1:06 to play when Russell converted a 3-pointer to make it 70–68.
Walker landed a short roundhouse shot with 39.6 seconds left and Christie landed two free throws with 31.1 seconds left in the game. But Hakim Hart scored with 22.6 seconds left, followed by an AJ Hoggard pass. Ayala scored a goal with 16.9 left in the game and it became a two-point game again.
“During the break, I told the guys that if you watched conference games, you know that all games end with five points in the last two minutes,” Ayala said. “I watched games all day yesterday and the day before yesterday. I knew we were going to be in the game at some point at the end, so it was just a matter of time before we started and sorted things out.”
Malik Hall flipped him once more with 15.6 seconds left, but Russell missed a 3-pointer, Christie grabbed the boards and made final free throws to avoid total disaster.
“You have to be happy with the win because you keep playing and moving on. We’re just not satisfied with that because the game was in our hands and then kind of let it go,” said Walker, who scored nine points. . “But we knew what they were capable of scoring and relaxed a bit on defense. And that allowed them to score in such groups.”
This ended a strong day for Christy. The freshman guard finished with 16 points and six rebounds in 32 minutes. Gabe Brown added 13 points and six boards, while Walker and Marcus Bingham Jr. added nine points each.
The Spartans completed 11 of 16 passes in the second half to give the Terrapins 24 points. Izzo said he can’t remember a single stretch in his 27-season head coaching career when his team struggled to defend the ball as hard as MSU did in the final three minutes.
“I can’t help but take some of the blame for this, because our insult to the press just looked ridiculous,” he said. “And we weren’t under much pressure… It all happened so fast and I think everyone was engrossed in it.”
Russell led Maryland with 20 points, seven rebounds and six assists. Ayala scored 17 points, Donta Scott 15 and Hart 11.
The Terrapins edged out MSU 20-6 at halftime and 30-18 at the standing. MSU survived, shooting 50%, making 9 of 19 three-pointers and having a 40-30 rebounding advantage.
Strong start
It was an aggressive and balanced attack from the get-go for MSU, with Bingham showing a strong position in the first bucket and Brown setting the tone with his first five points. But Ayala and Russell kept the Terpov close to a pair of 3-pointers each.
To keep up, the Spartans began hissing outside. Walker hit a 3-pointer first, followed by a pair of Julius Marble hooks deep into the paint. Christie then fired up a pair of 3-pointers in the 15–4 series, the second of which gave ISU a 33–23 lead with 6.5 minutes to go.
Maryland had no intention of leaving, and Ayala scored four more of his 12 points in the first half to help his team come back in four. But Bingham called out the shot, and Jayden Akins picked up a lost ball and hit a three-pointer before the shot clock expired, and a minute before the Spartans went 43–34.
“I told my team that I think we played 85% of the games pretty damn well,” Izzo said. “Damn good. They’ve had a few shots before and we just (buffed) them.”
Christie was 3 of 3 from three-point range, scoring 10 points with four rebounds, while MSU went 7 of 11 from deep and shot 57.1% for the half. Nine of the 10 Spartans who played in the half scored goals, and six of them picked up rebounds as part of an 18-14 advantage on the glass. The Turps hit 41.4% and hit 5 of 14 on three-point attempts, with Russell adding nine points and four shields.
After the break, the Spartans quickly increased their lead to 20 points, with the seniors and captains stepping on the gas pedal. Bingham hit a pair of clean shots, Hall hit a runner just before shot clock expired, and Brown converted a 3-pointer and buried a 3-pointer as part of the first 14–3 volley. It included a 10-point streak in a row that saw MSU go 57–37, forcing interim Maryland coach Danny Manning to call a 1:02 p.m. timeout before the game.
As in every encounter with the Spartans, the Terpi rallied again. Scott hit a 3-pointer and then a tomahawk dunk to lead to a 12-2 streak that saw Maryland score nine in a row and close the gap to 10.
But Hall landed a hook to the post, AJ Hoggard went down with a layup, and Christie lost his footing, bringing MSU’s lead back to 65-51 with seven minutes to play.
The Terrapins made another push, with Scott converting a three-point scrimmage and Hart bolstered his bench and fans with a dunk in a transition that brought them down to single digits, 65–56, with 5:38 to play.
This coincided with the fact that the Spartans cooled off in the attack and did not score for more than 3.5 minutes. But Akins hit another 3-pointer with 3:09 left in the game, ending Maryland’s streak and extending MSU’s lead to 12, and proved to be a critical lifeline before the Terpov’s final push, which Izzo repeatedly placed on himself and his staff.
And in the postseason, it puts an even hotter spotlight on the turnover issue, which has been one of his team’s biggest problems all season.
“You can’t script everything in the game,” he said. “So angry is probably a bad word. It’s not in the lexicon anymore? Can we be angry? Probably not, someone will sue you for it. So I’m disappointed, a little upset, a little upset.
“And for Tom Izzo, damn angry. Yes, I was angry. I don’t accept it. That’s not what I should be doing.”
This season, the Spartans split their encounters with the Big Ten co-champion Badgers, winning 86–74 on the road in dominant fashion on January 21 and then losing at home, 70–62, on February 8. Wisconsin (24-6) walks away after a 74-73 home loss to Nebraska on Sunday.
Contact Chris Solari at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari. Learn more about the Michigan Spartans and sign up for our Spartans Newsletter.
Tom Izzo: No More ‘My Failures’ for Michigan State as Postseason Begins
Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo on March 8, 2022, announced the Spartans’ opening game of the Big Ten tournament on Thursday against Maryland in Indianapolis.
Chris Solari, Detroit Free Press