The Breslin Center was filled once again with the Izzone as the MSU basketball team continued its exhibition season, downing Saginaw Valley State University by a final score of 87-77.
For the Spartans, the starting five was unchanged with only one freshman, forward Miles Bridges, featured in it. The other four were returners, headlined by guards junior Lourwarls "Tum Tum" Nairn Jr. and redshirt-senior Eron Harris.
Sophomores forward Kenny Goins and guard Matt McQuaid rounded at the starters.
Freshman guard Josh Langford was again out of the game with an injury. Langford missed the game against Northwood University as well, with his debut anticipated for the regular season.
After a slow start to the game in their first exhibition game against Northwood, the Spartans jumped out to a 13-3 start. They were led by Bridges and Harris, who combined for all 13 points in the MSU run.
Bridges was again showing out after a booming opener, contributing a couple blocks to go with his dunks within the first five minutes of the match.
MSU hit a scoreless stretch lasting about five minutes as the turnovers started to pile up. In a 5:33 stretch, the Spartans committed six turnovers, allowing the Cardinals to creep back into the game.
Saginaw Valley went on a 9-2 run to make it somewhat of a nail-biting affair. At one point, Harris came back on the floor from the bench but was taken out almost immediately by Izzo after an offensive foul.
A little over halfway through the first, only three Spartans had scored following the hot start. Bridges, Harris, and freshman guard Cassius Winston had combined for all 18 points.
While the turnovers were a pesky problem for MSU, the Cardinals didn't lag too far behind in that department. Careless mistakes for the opposing team resulted in nine turnovers at the end of the first half. The Spartans, though, chipped in 11 of their own by the break.
By the final shot, there were a combined 25 total fouls between the two teams. Both teams were in the bonuses after numerous whistles were called by the referees on both teams.
Going into the break, the Spartans were led by Bridges who scored 14 points and McQuaid who quietly added 12 points of his own. The two were the only players in double-digit scoring figures between the Cardinals and Spartans.
Beginning in the second half, Izzo featured a similar lineup to the one coming out of the break against Northwood. All three available freshmen — Bridges, Winston, and forward Nick Ward — shared the court together.
Ward was immediately able to make his presence felt as he scored his first two points on a floater. The team fed him the ball as he netted another field goal along with drawing a foul.
The freshman was unable to convert on those fouls, however. He struggled from the free throw line all game as he was just 0-5 from the charity stripe, unable to capitalize whenever he was fouled.
The 6-foot-0 guard, Winston, though, had an impressive sequence, nailing a three and driving to the basket for a layup. The effort put the young freshman into double-digits, giving four such Spartans the honor for the game.
MSU from there went on another field goal-less stretch for nearly four minutes. While they were getting points from the line, the team wasn't able to knock down any shots from the floor. The drought ended when Winston was able to drive to the basket for a contested layup.
The scoreless drought came back to haunt the Spartans as their comfortable lead slowly slipped away. The Cardinals used a 11-0 run with less than halfway to go in the second half to creep to within single digits. The away team's cause was aided by the play of guard Garrett Hall, who connected from deep on back-to-back three-pointers.
Saginaw Valley's comeback attempt also came on the heels of another drought from MSU, when it went nearly four minutes without a basket of any kind, its second prolonged stretch of the half.
From there, the closest the crowd saw the match was when it was 65-58 MSU, with about 6:15 left in the game. MSU was able to pull away from the Cardinals when a Bridges 3-pointer put the team up by 12 points with less than four minutes to go.
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After a total of 11 turnovers in the first half, MSU adjusted to the tune of only five such infractions in the final 20 minutes. Cutting down on them didn't help the team defensively, though, as they allowed 49 points in the second half, 21 more than the first.
The Cardinals efforts were carried by Hall, whose 24 points on just 13 shots made him the leading scorer between the two teams. Forward C.J. Turnage also chipped in an additional 20 points and seven rebounds in the losing effort.
MSU, on the other hand, had four different double-digit scorers to help the home team's cause. Harris, Bridges, McQuaid, and Winston were the quadruplet diversifying the scoring.
The Spartans will open their regular season when they travel to Honolulu, Hawaii on Nov. 11 to take on the University of Arizona in the Armed Forces Classic.
