Head coach Tom Izzo calls new players to the court on Feb. 17, 2015, during the game against Michigan at Crisler Center in Ann Arbor. The Spartans defeated the Wolverines 80-67. Emily Nagle/The State News
—In a Big Ten grinder, the defense of MSU men’s basketball carried the team to a timely 60-53 road win at Illinois.
With MSU (19-8 overall, 10-4 Big Ten) and Illinois (17-10 overall, 7-7 Big Ten) both fighting to improve their NCAA tournament resumes, the game took on a physicality that Izzo said he hadn’t seen since the mid-2000s.
“It was two teams battling for their lives,” Izzo said. “I’m getting a little tired of hearing on the networks about the Big Ten. I mean, if that isn’t a tournament team that we just played. I mean there’s so many things — I think our league has gotta get a little more credit because that was a war. That was as tough as any non-conference team we played.”
Illinois redshirt senior guard Rayvonte Rice, who missed the first meeting because of a suspension, was back in the lineup for the Fighting Illini. He finished as one of two Illini players to reach double-digit scoring, but eight of his 15 points came from the free throw line.
The whistles picked up in the second half, and both teams were in the double-bonus by the 8-minute mark.
While Illinois managed to hang around with the free-throw line, it struggled mightily with shooting the ball. Credit the MSU defense for holding Illinois to just 28.8 percent shooting from the field, the fourth time this year that the Spartans have held their opponent to under 30 percent from the floor.
Izzo called his team’s defensive performance “unbelievable.”
“I thought we did a pretty good job. I don’t know what he ended up with, on (Kendrick) Nunn and definitely (Malcolm) Hill,” Izzo said. “Those two guys are good players too. But those three guys (including Rice), that’s as good of a two, three, four combination, I think as there is. They’re all strong, they’re all athletic, and they all can shoot it. So we feel very fortunate to get away with this win.”
Senior forward Branden Dawson was terrific on the defensive end, finishing the game with three blocks. Dawson’s presence extended out of the paint, as his blocks came on pull-up jumpers.
As foul calls began to pick up in the second half, multiple Spartans found themselves in foul trouble. Junior forward Matt Costello, sophomore forward Gavin Schilling, and Dawson were the primary concerns for MSU, and as a result, redshirt junior Colby Wollenman saw eight minutes of action.
Wollenman was reliable for MSU, and the defense didn’t seem to skip a beat with him in the game.
It was a gritty performance from the Spartans, and suddenly, MSU is on a four-game win streak.
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