Marquette gave the men's basketball team everything they could handle on Friday night, but the Golden Eagles ultimately couldn't overcome a career night from Denzel Valentine.
The junior guard nailed six 3-pointers en route to a career-high 25 points to help the No. 20 Spartans (5-1 overall) defeat Marquette (3-3 overall) 79-68 in the Orlando Classic semifinal round.
The Spartans will face No. 11 Kansas on Sunday in the title game.
Senior guard Travis Trice had 19 points, seven assists and six rebounds and freshman forward Marvin Clark added 10 points. Freshman guard Duane Wilson led Marquette with 15 points.
MSU turned the ball over 10 times in the first half and struggled against a 2-3 zone employed by the Golden Eagles.
MSU took a 28-22 lead after a Valentine pull-up jump shot, but Marquette consistently found a way to answer on offense. Sophomore guard Jajuan Johnson responded to a Trice 3-pointer at the 3:45 mark to help the Golden Eagles pull within three points, 31-28.
Senior guard Matt Carlino answered a Valentine jump shot with a 3-pointer, giving Marquette a 34-33 lead with less than two minutes left.
After opening the second half with a 3-pointer, Valentine called for the ball and nailed the resulting 3-point attempt with confidence, pushing the lead to 41-34.
Senior forward Branden Dawson took it to the rim to make it an 8-0 run to open the second half. The run became 11-3 for the Spartans after Clark drained his second face-up 3-pointer of the night.
Valentine's fifth 3-pointer of the night gave MSU a 55-47 lead with 13:07 on the clock. A minute later, Dawson sank a jumper to give the Spartans their biggest lead of the night, a 10-point margin.
Consecutive steals by freshman guard Lourawls Nairn Jr. helped the Spartans take a commanding 65-49 lead with less than 11 minutes left. He fed Trice and Valentine in transition for 3-pointers and made a layup of his own to temporarily change the momentum of the game.
An almost turnover-free second half came to an abrupt end when consecutive Spartan turnovers helped Marquette cut the lead back to 10, 65-55, with 8:11 remaining.
A 13-3 run by Marquette kept the game interesting as the half winded down.
Sophomore forward Schilling had an encouraging performance on offense, but picked up his fourth foul with under five minutes left. Senior guard Derrick Wilson made both free throws to cut the score to seven, 68-61, with 4:48 remaining. Junior forward Steve Taylor Jr. added another free throw 20 seconds later to cut the lead to six.
Trice sealed the game after laying in his own miss to give MSU a 76-66 lead with 1:28 remaining.
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