Despite its loss, Michigan State basketball shows needed toughness for NCAA tournament

MINNEAPOLIS — In the end, Zach Edey and Purdue were too much to overcome yet again.

In the end, the referees’ whistles — as right or wrong, or disparate in frequency, as the calls may have been — proved too much of a factor for Michigan State basketball to escape.

“You just gotta play basketball,” a frustrated Tyson Walker said in the Spartans’ locker room Friday following MSU's 67-62 loss to the Boilermakers. “You can't do nothing about it. You know, it happens.”

And yet, still, an emotional lift from Mady Sissoko and a stand-his-ground, head-to-chest confrontation between Tre Holloman and the massive Edey provided visual evidence the Spartans would not back down from a seemingly insurmountable challenge.

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“We know we're not gonna hold him scoreless, for sure,” Sissoko said of facing Edey again. “We just tried our best to make things hard for him.”

In the end, the top-seeded Boilermakers pulled away against No. 8 seed MSU in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals at Target Center.

But it will not be the end for the Spartans (19-14). Although MSU's games are done, they’ll return to East Lansing, to wait for Sunday’s bracket announcement while knowing the NCAA tournament comes next.

They'll spend that time analyzing how MSU can use the lessons from two games at Target Center that the Spartans showed — to their coaches, opponents and players themselves — to deliver Tom Izzo more than just a 26th straight NCAA berth. And figuring out if they can somehow approach the championship dreams they all entered the season with, at the end of a season that has been both unpredictable and underwhelming.

“I'm looking forward to getting home and seeing if we can make one of those patented runs,” Izzo said in the hallway outside the MSU locker room.

It was the second time in two weeks that MSU took No. 3 Purdue (29-3) to the wire only to come up short. The Boilermakers won the first meeting, 80-74, on March 2 in West Lafayette, Indiana.

After falling behind by 12 twice in the first four-plus minutes of the second half Friday, MSU charged back and tied it 56-56 on a Walker pull-up jumper with 1:40 to play.

But Fletcher Loyer drained a 3-pointer on Purdue's next possession to give the Boilermakers the lead for good. Freshman Xavier Booker got a clean look from deep after Izzo called timeout with 1:14 to play, but the ball rimmed out and went back to Purdue.

It was a designed play for Booker, and Izzo said everyone on the bench loved the call. But it ended up another missed opportunity in a game in which the Spartans continued their ongoing shooting struggles, going 4-for-18 from 3-point range and making just 39.3% overall. Jaden Akins continued to battle his inconsistency, making just 2 of 11 attempts, both of them layups, while he, Walker and A.J. Hoggard combined to go 11-for-37.

And after Booker's miss, as they did all game, the Boilermakers went back to Edey for a deep-post layup over Booker at the other end. The two-time Big Ten Player of the Year (and reigning national player of the year) also hit a pair of free throws with 19.4 seconds left, moments after Malik Hall's dunk pulled MSU back within two, to push Purdue into Saturday’s semifinals against No. 5 seed Wisconsin (1 p.m., CBS).

It was MSU’s 11th loss in 16 games this season decided by single digits.

“I tried to sell it to my guys all week that I went through every game we played, I went through every stat,” Izzo said. “I looked at the number of teams that beat us handily — Kansas was beaten by 30 the other day; nobody did that to us. We lost a couple of games in double figures.

“But not finding a way to win some of those (close) games is a problem.””

Edey finished with 29 points, making 10 of 16 shots and going 9-for-14 at the free throw line. The senior, who announced he plans to forego his COVID year of eligibility once this season is done, has 131 points and 53 rebounds in four games against MSU over the past two seasons.

The Spartans were called for 29 fouls Friday, with 14 of them drawn by Edey.

“I'm always (complaining) about displacement,” Izzo said. “(Refs) said he can't displace them that way, and I'm saying, 'But you can't displace them this way, either.' But if we made some shots, we win the game and nobody cares. …

“We just battled. Broken noses, (twisted) ankles. I mean, that was a football game on hardwood. That's all it was. It'll be a little confusing now, because the NCAA tournament won't be like that, as we all very well know. But it was one of the more physical games I've played in a lot of years.”

MSU was called for four offensive fouls in the first half and took a critical charging call with 2:58 left in the game on Walker, his second charge and fourth foul of the day. Replay showed Purdue's Lance Jones had one foot on the circle under the basket, a line of demarcation that should have rendered it a blocking foul on the Boilermakers, who were whistled just 17 times.

Instead of going to the free-throw line down four, it resulted in an MSU turnover. Jones drew nine fouls, including all five offensive fouls called against the Spartans, and was called for only one on defense.

“Sometimes you gotta win the game by 10 to win the game,” Walker said cryptically about the foul disparity. “So you just gotta play better.”

Edey was not whistled for a personal foul during his 34:45, with his only infraction coming during a dead-ball situation. But that proved a moment in which Holloman and the Spartans showed they weren't about to back down to one of the nation’s best players and a likely No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament that begins next week.

With 9:56 to play and the Spartans trailing, 51-45, Holloman and Loyer started scrapping back and forth for position on the left block, with the Purdue sophomore grabbing and swinging the MSU sophomore’s arm before Loyer took off around a Mason Gillis screen. Holloman’s feet got tangled as he gave chase, and he was called for a tripping foul as Loyer fell to the floor while going to take a handoff from Edey.

After the whistle, Loyer threw the ball at Hall’s feet. Holloman was standing next to Loyer and turned to step away. He ran right into Edey, who had walked over and extended his arm into Holloman’s chest.

The two started bumping and jawing at each other for a second, the 6-foot-2, 180-pound Holloman barking at the 7-4, 300-pound Edey, with the former hockey player looking down with a smirk at the former football player during the confrontation. Gillis quickly pushed Holloman back, and Hall also stepped between them.

Both Holloman and Edey were given offsetting technical fouls.

“I just stayed there, because I was kind of heated,” said Holloman, who had 10 points and four reboudns. “Edey came over, and they were just trying to like move me out the way. And I wasn't trying to move. It's just basketball, man. ...

“We've been called soft all year. I try and bring some toughness every game. Our bigs, they battled. The guards battled, too. We were just trying to be be physical with them.”

Beyond Edey, MSU’s defense held kept Purdue's roster mostly in check. The rest of the Boilermakers combined to go 12-for-37 (32.4%) and 5-for-14 from 3-point range. Jones was the only other Purdue player to score in double figures, though half of his 10 points came at the free-throw line.

Still, two Gillis 3-pointers, along with the critical Loyer make late and another from Braden Smith early in the second half, came as MSU double-teamed Edey in the paint to try and slow him down.

“We have a lot of respect for Michigan State, just how they run their program, how they play, how they compete,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “We’ve stolen a lot from them through the years. If you can learn from competition, that's the best.”

Izzo’s guards did show down the stretch, at the end of the regular season and in beating Minnesota to open Big Ten tournament play, that their defense still can smother opposing backcourts. That will be pivotal heading into the NCAA tournament, where guard play often makes the difference at both ends of the floor.

Also in MSU's favor: the NCAA tournament refereeing often becomes less restrictive.

“You just gotta work on yourself, work as a team and just try to get better,” said Walker, who had 15 points. “It's gonna be different basketball in the tournament, how the calls are called. The style of play, it'll be completely different no matter who we play. No conference plays like the Big Ten, so we just gotta be prepared for that.”

How much did Friday toughen up the Spartans? Check back next week, at a location and time yet to be determined — much like the ending to MSU’s story this season.

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball shows needed toughness for NCAA tournament