Senior guard Chris Hill held his hands high in the air a little past midcourt - the same spot he threw a lob pass that sailed over several Michigan defenders and into junior guard Maurice Ager's hands for a high flying dunk with more than six minutes left.
It was another moment on the highlight reel for MSU's senior class, winning 64-53 against the Wolverines. The seniors capped off their careers against the rivals from Ann Arbor with a perfect record at Breslin Center. The only loss came in 2003 at Crisler Arena.
"We're happy - this is bragging rights," senior swingman Alan Anderson said. "Now we got to take this and get better now."
MSU head coach Tom Izzo described the game as a hockey match - where the Hill-to-Ager offensive moment was one of a select few in a game won on the defensive side. Izzo said his staff counted 60 pass deflections.
"We probably had more tonight than any game we've played," Izzo said. "We were very aggressive defensively and very unaggressive offensively."
The seniors have helped keep the rivalry's momentum in favor of MSU, with the Spartans winning 11 of the last 12 games.
The Spartans took away the Wolverines' top strengths.
U-M's leading scorer guard Dion Harris was held to 12 points and MSU outscored the Wolverines 32-30 in the paint, a big concern with U-M's depth before the game.
"We wanted to have defensive intensity and we did that well as a group," Hill said.
Earlier this week, senior guard Kelvin Torbert said U-M was the win he wanted most all season.
The Spartans brought that mentality out on the court by taking charges, diving for loose balls and causing 23 turnovers, revving up the Izzone. It was the loudest the expanded student section has been all season, yelling chants of "NIT" in reference to the National Invitation Tournament.
Anderson crashed the boards early in the first half and Torbert hit a 3-pointer that helped end the bleeding caused by a 7-0 U-M run to start the game. The Spartans scored the next 12 points.
To start the second half, junior center Paul Davis found Anderson who had snuck behind the zone defense for a high flying alley-oop dunk. The dunk capped off an 8-0 start, helping MSU increase its lead to 14.
Although the senior group didn't put up big-scoring totals, Hill finished with six points, six assists and one turnover. Anderson finished with 10 points.
Coming off the bench Torbert, who scored eight points, helped outscore the U-M reserves, 26-14.
Brian Charlton can be reached at charlt10@msu.edu.
