If MSU men's basketball coach Tom Izzo needed a reason to work his players harder going into the regular season, he found it Thursday when the No. 3 Spartans struggled for most of the game.
But the team ended up beating Nike Elite, 85-81, in the Spartans' final exhibition game.
Against a team that already had lost to Connecticut, Marquette and Syracuse, the Spartans looked more like the Lehigh and Penn State teams, the only two that Nike Elite had defeated on its college tour.
"The score didn't indicate how well Michigan State controlled that game," Nike coach Glenn Sergent said.
The Nike Elite team that gave MSU struggles all night featured few recognizable players beyond former Kansas guard Jeff Boschee and former Wisconsin forward Charlie Wills, but that didn't stop the veterans from giving MSU a run for the win. The duo combined for 38 points.
"This isn't a win that we feel good about at all," junior guard Chris Hill said. "Because we had things that we wanted to work on and get better and we didn't."
The Spartans' real defensive troubles came against the Nike Elite guard tandem of Lionel Armstead and Kenny Williams. The pair shot 9-for-14 from behind the 3-point line and accounted for 34 of the squad's points, with Armstead scoring 16 and Williams adding 18.
MSU struggled to the end, shooting 3-for-7 from the free throw line in the final three minutes.
"It's still not a concern," Izzo said. "Sometimes, you have the wrong guy shooting. It's not really a concern, but the concern was how many times we got to the free throw line."
After a missed 3-pointer by Boschee, Hill's following free throw closed out the game.
The Spartans struggled from beyond the arc, shooting just 5-for-15 on 3-pointers.
Sophomore center Paul Davis spent his time shooting from outside, going 7-for-16 for 14 points and seven rebounds. Despite the point total, Davis and Izzo were more concerned about the fact that Davis failed to post up effectively during the game.
"It was my fault that I didn't get in there and I didn't post up," Davis said. "If I don't start doing it, then you can't blame the other players for not doing it."
While many of the Spartans struggled, junior guard Kelvin Torbert, junior swingman Alan Anderson and Hill kept the Spartans ahead. Anderson scored 15 points on 6-for-7 shooting while Hill added 18 points on a 6-for-10 performance.
And MSU made up for those struggles with offensive rebounding.
The Spartans out-rebounded Nike Elite 46-to-39 and 23-to-18 on the offensive glass. MSU scored 30 points in the paint, while Nike Elite only had 10.
Torbert scored 10 points in the game with all eight of his first-half points coming off offensive rebounds under the basket.
But the guard left the game less than one minute into the second half with an injured left ankle after his foot slipped on a jump-stop.
"It's kind of criminal that Kelvin Torbert (got hurt)," Izzo said. "I think he was a guy that we really missed. He was playing so well and he was checking as well as anybody."
One bright spot for the Spartans came from the freshmen backcourt. While freshman guard Shannon Brown ran rampant, shooting 2-for-9 and scoring seven points with seven rebounds, backcourt teammate Brandon Cotton was impressive, scoring eight points.
After missing several practices with an ankle injury, sophomore guard Maurice Ager scored five points and had six rebounds.
