First place in the conference was at stake along with bragging rights in the State of Michigan for the first meeting of two between the Wolverines and the Spartans. On the road, Michigan State looked to steal the win in Ann Arbor over Michigan who was 13-0 at home this season. It was a primetime game on a Friday night and Crisler Arena was once again at capacity with another sellout.
The matchup is the first in the rivalry for new Michigan Head Coach Dusty May, taking on legendary Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo, who by the way recently became the all time winningest coach in Big Ten history passing Bobby Knight. So even for the coaches, the game had meaning.
The key to the game for Michigan was to limit turnovers, something they have sometimes struggled with doing. If they did that, and controlled the pace, it would be a long night for the visiting Spartans. However, the first possession for Michigan ended up being a turnover and led to Michigan State scoring first on a Jase Richardson three pointer and put MSU up 3-0. Wolverine big man Vladislav Boldin answered with a two point basket in the paint but even with a majority of the crowd cheering against them, the Spartans went on a run to take a 13-6 lead early in the game.
In a rivalry game with both teams ranked in the top 25, everyone knew this would be a battle for the entire forty minutes. Michigan fought back and brought the Crisler Arena crowd to its feet as Danny Wolf went with a fancy behind the back pass to Roddy Gayle Jr. of the Wolverines, who made the reverse layup and was fouled to bring the Wolverines within one point. Michigan tied the game at 16 points a piece with Gayle’s made free throw at the eleven minute mark in the first half.
Less than a minute later, Michigan took the lead on a running floater in the paint by Rubin Jones. That basket was part of a Michigan 15-0 scoring run resulting in the Wolverines taking control of the game and leading the Spartans by seven, 23-16.
Michigan State kept the lead from getting out of hand in the first half behind a couple of highlight dunks by the athletic Cohen Carr. One was an alley-oop to silence the Michigan fans and then later he went up high above the rim for a putback dunk off a missed shot.
After being down by as many as eight in the first twenty minutes, MSU cut the lead to three points with five seconds left in the half and trailed only by four going into the locker room at the break 38-34.
Coach Izzo’s message at halftime kept the fight burning in the Spartans as MSU scored the first points of the second half with a three pointer by Richardson to cut the deficit to one point. And on their next possession, another three pointer by Jeremy Fears gave Michigan State a two point lead early in the final period.
It wasn’t long after that the Spartans got into some foul trouble when two of their starting big men, Jaxon Kohler and Szymon Zapala, picked up their third fouls and went to the bench. However Michigan State adjusted and went to a three guard lineup and it seemed to work well.
The two teams traded baskets and leads for the next several minutes until the Spartans got a spark from reserve guard Tre Holloman who hit three consecutive triples to put Michigan State up by eight, 57-49 midway through the half. Unfortunately for Michigan, that would be the dagger as they would never fully recover and MSU would stay in front for the remainder of the game.
The balanced, consistent, and calm play of Michigan State saw their second half lead blossom up to eleven points with just under eight minutes left in the game. The determined Wolverines did have one last run in them, scoring eight straight points to cut the lead to three, 62-59 with about five and half minutes left in the game. However, Izzo’s squad answered that to go on a 13-3 run of their own highlighted by a three pointer off the glass by Fears to finish the game and defeat Michigan 75-62.
The freshman Richardson led the Spartans in scoring with 21 points on 7 of 12 shooting from the field. He also grabbed six rebounds in the game and trailed only Carson Cooper on Michigan State who had eight boards to lead all players in the game.
For Michigan, Goldin matched Richardson’s game high of 21 points to lead the Wolverines in scoring. Michigan also had Nimari Burnett and Danny Wolf score in double figures with 12 and 11 points respectively.
Both teams shot 46% from the field but Michigan State made five more baskets and four more three pointers in the game. Michigan, who came in as the better three point shooting team, connected on only 5 of 21 (24%) shots from behind the arc. Despite having a size advantage in the game, Michigan was also out rebounded 31-24 and the Spartans active play grabbed 12 offensive rebounds, doubling that of the Wolverines.
Next up, No. 12 Michigan (20-6) will travel to take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers (17-10). No. 14 Michigan State (22-5) will also go on the road as they will battle the No. 20 ranked Maryland Terrapins (21-6) in College Park, MD.
Final Score: Michigan State 75 – Michigan 62
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