Riding on a six-game winning streak, the No. 20 MSU men's basketball team made very few mistakes, committing a season-low of eight turnovers while forcing 19 in a 87-58 win over Northwestern on Saturday at Breslin Center.
MSU (10-2 overall, 2-0 Big Ten) snapped the Wildcats' four-game winning streak while extending its own to seven games for the first time since the 2000-01 season, when MSU opened the season with 12 straight wins.
The Spartans closed the previous season, 1999-2000, on an 11-game winning streak.
"We are confident," MSU head coach Tom Izzo said. "We're feeling good about ourselves."
Northwestern (8-6, 1-1) started out the game running a slow, plodding offense, which led to three shot-clock violations and eight turnovers in the first eight minutes of the game.
"Obviously, Michigan State is a very good team," Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody said. "They took us out of what we wanted to do in the first half."
Even with senior guard Chris Hill and sophomore guard Shannon Brown combined for six-for-18 shooting, the MSU offense was still able to produce solid contributions from junior center Paul Davis (17 points), senior swingman Alan Anderson (13 points) and junior guard Maurice Ager (18 points). In five career games against the Wildcats, Ager has averaged 15.6 points per game.
"Shannon had some great shots he missed," Izzo said. "Chris has not shot as well in the last couple games. We need our best shooters and those are two of our better shooters. It was good to get Mo Ager back on track a little bit."
Senior guard Kelvin Torbert was impressed by the way the rest of the team stepped up.
"It shows how well-rounded we are," Torbert said. "We have a lot of guys out there who can explode and score 20 points any night. It's big for us to have many guys who can pick it up."
Izzo heaped praise on Torbert, who came off the bench and added 12 points in 22 minutes.
"If you listen to the kid talk, he's just the best," Izzo said. "He's such a great guy, and he's such a team guy."
MSU was aided by the fact that Northwestern forward Davor Duvancic did not play because of a stomach flu, and guard T.J. Parker was limited to only five minutes for the same reason.
The Wildcats also were dealt a blow when their leading scorer, forward Vedran Vukusic, left the game with a shoulder injury with eight minutes left in the first half. He did return for the second half but was limited. He finished with 12 points.
"He got hit pretty hard there," Carmody said. "It just limited his shooting, lifting his arm up."
The Spartans made more field goals (33) than the Wildcats attempted (32). Through the first 13 minutes of the game, Northwestern only put up six field goal tries, making four, but were already down 12 points.
"That's a statement to our defense," Torbert said. "We forced them into some tough end-of-the-shot-clock plays, and we forced a lot of turnovers and they don't turn the ball over.
"That's big and, hopefully, a stepping stone for our defense."
Northwestern got the score within 10, 50-40, six minutes into the second half, but MSU went on a 37-18 run to end the game.
