MSU fights through fatigue for 9-point win over Buckeyes

During the his team’s Big Ten home opener against Ohio State on Tuesday, MSU men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo said his team lost focused and looked tired.

To put it in Izzo-talk, most of his team lacked “zip.”

That is, except for sophomore guard Kalin Lucas.

Lucas scored 14 of his game-high 20 points in the first half and junior forward Raymar Morgan (13 points, 10 rebounds) recorded his third straight double-double as No. 8 MSU (12-2 overall, 3-0 Big Ten) defeated Ohio State (10-3, 1-2) 67-58 at Breslin Center.

“We looked tired, we played tired,” Izzo said. “We’ve played 13 straight days and I thought we had a lot of guys who looked tired. At times we did a very good job … but we lost focus a lot.”

The Spartans did indeed look tired for much of the game, especially early on as Ohio State built an early 17-13 lead. But late in the first half Lucas and the rest of Spartans should a little zip by making five 3-pointers in three minutes following the under-8 minute media timeout.

Freshman guard Korie Lucious began the spree with a three from the left wing to break a five minute MSU scoring drought, sophomore guard Chris Allen drilled a 3-pointer of his own from the right wing and Lucas followed with back-to-back treys to turn a four point deficit into a 26-20 lead.

“Just bring some energy; that’s what we were trying to find, was energy,” senior guard Travis Walton said of the team’s mindset coming out of the timeout. “We were doing a lot of things wrong that we hadn’t lately and we played pretty good basketball, but we just didn’t bring it as much.”

After Ohio State called timeout then promptly turned it over, another MSU 3-pointer, this one by Morgan, put MSU up nine and sent the Spartans into halftime with a 35-24 lead.

Senior center Goran Suton, who finished with nine points and nine rebounds, opened the second half with a three of his own to extend MSU’s lead to 14. Back-to-back triples by William Buford got Ohio State within eight points five minutes into the second half and a 6-point run by freshman 7-footer B.J. Mullins did the same midway through the half.

However, that was as close as the Buckeyes would get as another 3-pointer by Lucas, and then a steal leading to a lay-up by Morgan gave the Spartans a 15-point lead with two minutes remaining.

Freshman forward Delvon Roe, getting his first start since Dec. 27 due to an ankle injury, had six points and eight rebounds in 17 minutes. Buford led Ohio State with 17 points while Mullins finished with 16. Ohio State sophomore wing Evan Turner also had 14 points and 10 rebounds.

Tuesday’s game marked the 13th straight day the Spartans have played or practiced, meaning Wednesday’s off-day will be well received. Although Izzo said he thought his team’s lack of execution was due to its fatigue, Walton said fatigue is no excuse.

“I don’t make excuses,” Walton said. “Things didn’t go the way we wanted them to go; we didn’t execute the way we wanted to, we didn’t play defense the way we wanted to and maybe it’s because we were tired. But we want to win championships here and you can’t hide under
that.

“There’s going to be days you’re going to be tired but you have to fight through them.”

The Spartans next take the court at 1 p.m. Saturday against defending national champion Kansas (11-3) at Breslin.