Michigan State basketball's grit and grind starting to pay off ahead of final stretch

The final moments felt both cathartic and euphoric, even if Tom Izzo emerged somewhat circumspect about Michigan State basketball’s first win at Michigan in five years.

The Spartans' head coach was so focused on his team’s micro-issues beyond the macro-joy of a rivalry victory that, at times, he almost sounded like the losing coach.

“I’m still looking for consistency,” Izzo said after MSU’s 73-63 win Saturday night at Crisler Center. “And I’m gonna look for it maybe the whole year. Maybe it’ll come.”

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Yet despite Izzo’s frustration over that consistent issue of inconsistency, his players, over their two games last week, also showed the incremental growth he has sought all season. both collectively and individually.

“We were just doing everything we could in our power to come out with a win,” senior A.J. Hoggard said in a jubilant locker room. “The leaders were leading, the veterans are stepping up, and everyone's following the right protocol.”

Squad goals

It started with a scrappy win Wednesday at Penn State, an 80-72 grinder that was just the Spartans’ second road victory of the season. MSU (17-9, 9-6 Big Ten) returned to East Lansing late after that one, then had just two days to prepare for the Wolverines, bringing up the rear in the Big Ten.

Saturday night, then, was the Spartans’ first victory in Ann Arbor since Feb. 24, 2019. It also was their 13th win in their past 17 games and fifth in six since falling Jan. 26 on the road at Wisconsin, giving the Badgers a season sweep.

But MSU's victory over U-M (8-18, 3-12) also gave the Spartans the first sweep in the in-state rivalry by either team since the Spartans won both regular-season meetings (and the Big Ten championship game) in the 2018-19 campaign. MSU blasted the Wolverines less than three weeks ago, 81-62, on Jan. 30 at Breslin Center.

“Obviously, whenever you get a win over your rival, you’re excited and you’re enthused about it,” senior forward Malik Hall said. “It's been a long five years. This is my first one, too. So I think it's just happy and exciting to be able to say that.”

More importantly, it boosted the Spartans — who began 1-4 in Big Ten play — into a third-place tie with Wisconsin and Northwestern in the conference standings with five games remaining before the Big Ten tourney next month in Minneapolis. Being among the top four would give MSU a double-bye, with Wednesday and Thursday off in the tournament which begins March 13.

The Spartans host Iowa on Tuesday (7 p.m.,Peacock) and Ohio State next Sunday to close out February. Two of MSU’s final three games then come on the road, March 2 at No. 2 Purdue (which fell to lowly OSU on Sunday) and March 10 at Indiana to close the regular season. Izzo’s team also hosts Northwestern on March 6 in what could be a critical game for postseason seeding — the Wildcats topped Indiana on the road on Sunday, pulling into a tie with the Spartans and Badgers for the final two double-byes.

Needing veterans

The personnel problems the Spartans worked around in picking up the wins at Penn State and U-M also were important.

In Wednesday’s win over the Nittany Lions, MSU overcame a six-point performance from star guard Tyson Walker, snapping his 35-game streak of scoring in double digits. Hall took control with a career-high 29 points in that one, while Jaden Akins hit four first-half-3-pointers and scored 18 to offset the off night by Walker. Sophomore center Carson Cooper also tied a career best with 10 points, giving the Spartans some interior scoring that has been rare all winter.

On Saturday, Walker rebounded and led MSU with 19 points but went just 6-for-16 from the field (and 1-for-5 from 3-point range). Akins also failed to build off his hot start at PSU, going 3-for-10 en route to seven points with one rebound against the Wolverines. The junior wing is 5-for-17 with one 3-pointer in seven attempts over the Spartans’ past 60 minutes of basketball.

“One of these days, we’re gonna get Jaden and Tyson to shoot well together,” Izzo quipped. “I guess maybe we’re saving it until we need it.”

Compounding those issues, Hoggard played only 3:10 in the first half in Ann Arbor due to foul trouble. After a monster game in the Feb. 10 upset of then-No. 10 Illinois, the veteran point guard struggled for the second straight game and finished with six points on 2-for-7 shooting in just 22 minutes.

Hoggard went 5-for-13 for a season-high 23 points against the Illini. He was just 4-for-16 for 10 points against the Nittany Lions and Wolverines combined. However, he also turned in nine assists, one turnover and six steals in those two road wins. One of his three steals against U-M came after he missed two free throws with the game tied 63-63; Hoggard drove for the go-ahead layup on the ensuing possession to spark the Spartans’ 10-0 closing run.

“Nobody expected me to miss. I didn't expect to miss,” Hoggard said. “So I gotta get it back somehow, some way. I found a way to get it back, and it worked out.”

Despite the ups and downs from the guards, MSU’s most consistent player for nearly two months continued to be their stabilizer Saturday. Hall followed the best game of his career, at PSU, with 18 points on 8-for-13 shooting against U-M. That included two critical free throws and a ferocious, driving, one-handed dunk with a little more than four minutes left.

Hall is averaging 16 points and six rebounds over his last 11 games, as well as being the anchor for MSU's stingy defense.

“He’s become a complete player,” Izzo said of Hall, adding the fifth-year senior has been “as steady as you can be.”

New contributors

Izzo also continues to see his freshmen and sophomores begin to provide production — sometimes big moments, sometimes necessary little things — that was missing early in the season.

Cooper (23 minutes) and fellow sophomore Jaxon Kohler (13 minutes) came off the bench and combined for 14 of the Spartans’ 31 rebounds. That helped offset another rough night from starting senior Mady Sissoko (no points, one rebound in 8 minutes). Freshman Xavier Booker also contributed two boards in his 3-minute stint, one of them on the offensive glass.

“I told you,” Izzo said of his young post players, “a team grows when certain things happen.”

With Hoggard on the bench and Akins struggling and battling foul trouble, freshman wing Coen Carr provided a career high eight points in 8 minutes over the first half. That included a three-point play and two dunks — one a breakaway after a steal, the other an alley-oop from Walker after Carr made a save on a ball going out of bounds on defense.

Tre Holloman, despite picking up his second foul with 3:36 left before halftime, played 15 of his 22 minutes in the first half with Hoggard out. The sophomore had six points, two rebounds, two assists, a steal, a block and no turnovers in 22 minutes.

“That's the thing with Division I sports. If somebody goes down — whether it's because of injury, whether it's because of foul trouble, whether it's just not playing well — somebody else has to step up,” Hall said. “And I think the first half, I really gave credit to our young guys just coming off the bench. ... That's the stuff that you need in a team if we want to be very successful.”

And when Izzo sat Holloman 24.6 seconds before the break, senior walk-on Davis Smith entered and provided two clutch free throws with 0.4 seconds left that gave the Spartans a lead and some momentum heading into the locker room.

MSU’s reserves outscored Michigan’s, 23-2.

“The bench played really well,” Walker said. “That was a key for us today, our bench playing better than their bench. And it happened. We gotta be prepared for stuff like that, just everybody stepping up. And it happened today.”

And that helped deliver a memory-making night for a group that hadn’t won in Ann Arbor until Saturday. That was something Izzo preached to his players beforehand and cherished in the aftermath of the rivalry victory.

“We did some good things, but we did some bad things. … We're not a perfect team. I haven't seen many that are right now,” Izzo said. “We still we did what we had to do. We won a game in a tough environment.”

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

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball: A week of grit and grind sparks Spartans