For the past three years, MSU men’s basketball head coach Tom Izzo and his teams have fought to end their season as one of the Final Four.
But even after a 67-64 win over No. 16 Ohio State on Sunday at Breslin Center, the Spartans must fight to simply make the NCAA Tournament.
Izzo said while his tournament chances are up in the air, the MSU (14-9 overall, 5-5 Big Ten) win over the Buckeyes (17-5, 8-3) pushes his team in the right direction.
“I’m still not comfortable with it, because we have a lot of games left,” Izzo said of MSU’s tournament hopes. “But we did beat a very good team today. This will be a quality win for us.”
But talking to his team about its tournament fate is something Izzo has struggled with.
“I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t know how to approach this team about things like (the tournament). What’s putting too much pressure on them?What’s not putting enough?” he said. “We told them that we definitely have to win some games, and when we’re at home we have to win our home games.”
After their lowest offensive output of the season in Wednesday’s 61-49 loss at Northwestern, the Spartans benefited from sophomore guard Marcus Taylor’s return to the lineup. Taylor had been sidelined with a concussion suffered Feb. 3 at Illinois.
Taylor and junior forward Adam Ballinger paced all scorers with 18 points each in Sunday’s upset win. Ballinger also led the attack on the boards, finishing with a game-high 10 rebounds.
Freshman guard and forward Alan Anderson chipped in 10 points and junior forward Al Anagonye added nine points and eight rebounds for the Spartans’ winning cause.
Guard Brent Darby led four Buckeyes in double figures with 14 points.
But even though the Spartans defeated their second top-20 team in the past week, Izzo said his squad isn’t where he wants them to be.
“We’re still not a smooth basketball team - everything is grinded out,” Izzo said. “We’re just not in sync yet.”
Causing some of the commotion Sunday was a swarming Buckeye defense that double-teamed and trapped from the opening tip.
The staunch defense allowed the Buckeyes to gain the early lead, before a 13-0 Spartan run put MSU on top for the rest of the first half.
During the stretch, the Spartans began to adjust to Ohio State traps, Taylor said.
“We just attacked it,” he said. “After the first few times, we realized what their weaknesses were, and we started to penetrate and kick it out.”
The Buckeyes regrouped after halftime and assembled another push, which put them on top 36-35 early in the second half, before the Spartans responded with another 13-0 run.
Ohio State head coach Jim O’Brien said his team had some good scoring chances during the crucial stretch but couldn’t capitalize.
“That drought really, really hurt us,” he said. “I thought we had some pretty good looks and that we got the ball underneath the basket a couple of times.
“I think that was the key element in the game.”
And if a late second-half surge proved to be the difference Sunday, a late second-half surge through the Spartans’ schedule could be the key to their postseason destiny.
Piling on conference wins at this time of year helps put the Spartans in control of their fate, Izzo said.
“I never like to leave it in the hands of somebody else, and that’s kind of what we’re doing,” he said. “The things they talk about, like playing a tough schedule - we played six or seven very good teams in the nonconference - I hope will help us because we may need that.
“But I think we earned that too.”
Dan Woike can be reached at woikedan@msu.edu.
