“Assists are a big part of my game,” Neitzel said. “It feels good. Magic’s one of the greatest Spartan players. But it only took him two years and it’s taken me three-plus.”

Neitzel is now fourth on the MSU all-time assists list with 493.

Passing the ball has been something that Neitzel has taken to often this season. MSU head coach Tom Izzo has said that he still hopes Neitzel would take the shots when they’re available to him.

“Drew hit a few big shots, but he’s got to get more shots and we’ve got to do a better job,” Izzo said. “I do want to get more shots for Neitzel. Make no mistake about that. They did an incredible job on him. They had to take him away to win.”

Texas attempts a comeback
Just when Spartans fans were grabbing their coats and heading for the exits, Texas guard A.J. Abrams decided to narrow the margin and make it interesting.

In the last minute of the contest, Abrams had 12 points on four 3-point baskets. The scoring output took place in a 37-second span.

Texas guard D.J. Augustin said it was too bad those shots couldn’t have come at an earlier point in the game.

“You always hope to make perimeter shots,” he said. “We were just unfortunate to not make shots.”

Izzo was impressed with the performance of MSU’s defense in following the game plan to lock down Texas’ guards.

“I still think D.J. Augustin is the best point guard in the country and I thought we did a decent job on him,” Izzo said. “I thought we held Abrams in check until the last minute. Our guys followed the game plan as precisely as they could defensively.”

Turnovers down for MSU
While MSU and Texas both took to up-tempo styles of play in the contest, MSU finished with a remarkable season-low six turnovers.

“That was a big key in out points of the game,” Izzo said. “It was really big.”

Texas finished the game with nine turnovers. The Spartans had 18 assists compared to the six turnovers.