Evanston, Ill. - The MSU men’s basketball team lost to Northwestern Wednesday for the first time since 1997 and only the second time since 1987.
Before the 61-49 loss at Welsh-Ryan Arena, MSU won 27 of the last 28 games between the two teams. Despite leading the all-time series 66-35, MSU (13-9 overall, 4-5 Big Ten) is 29-25 at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
Northwestern (13-8, 4-5) already has won two more than it recorded last season.
MSU played without the service of sophomore point guard Marcus Taylor, who suffered a mild concussion Sunday when he hit his head on the floor during MSU’s 67-61 win against Illinois.
In Taylor’s absence, freshman guard Chris Hill ran the Spartan’s offense, scored 10 points and added seven assists.
But no one can substitute for Taylor, Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody said.
“Taylor is out,” Carmody said. “I’m the last guy to take anything away from a team, but they’re a different team without him, they’re not as fast.”
After only committing three turnovers in the first half, MSU committed eight in the second half as it trailed for most of it. Before Wednesday’s game, the Spartans averaged 15.6 turnovers a game.
MSU head coach Tom Izzo said the turnovers weren’t as bad as they’ve been all season, but Northwestern converted those turnovers into 19 points.
“That has been our Achilles heel all season,” Izzo said
With eight minutes left, the Wildcats took their biggest lead of the game when guard Jitim Young tipped in a teammates’ miss to go up 47-42. Hill stopped the bleeding by hitting his own three-pointer. But MSU only scored four points in the final 6:05.
Three of MSU’s final points came with 4:02 left, when freshman guard Tim Bograkos found junior forward Adam Ballinger on the baseline for a layup. Ballinger was fouled and converted the three-point play to cut Northwestern’s lead to 53-48.
But guard Collier Drayton converted a three-point play, too, and Northwestern went up 56-49. And with 1:09 left, Hill had the ball stolen by Young at half court. Young went the other way for an open layup and iced the game at 60-49.
“At the end we were fortunate,” Carmody said. “We were aggressive and we got a couple steals.”
But before the Wildcats put MSU away with forced turnovers, they killed the Spartans with their three-point shooting, Izzo said. Northwestern hit 10 of 26 from the three-point line.
“I thought we played well at some times,” Izzo said. “We gave up some three’s, but they hit some three’s. What we did offensively was very poor on the coaching staffs part.”
But MSU’s offense hung in the game in the first half, even though Northwestern took a 30-29 lead shooting 48 percent on 12 of 25 from the field. The Wildcats only committed one turnover and offensively were led by forward Tavaras Hardy, who led all scorers in the first half with 11 points in 19 minutes.
After playing four of their last five games on the road, the Spartans return to the friendly confines of Breslin Center at 1 p.m. Sunday to take on Big Ten leader Ohio State (17-3, 8-1).
