West Lafayette, Ind. - On paper it looks simple. The MSU men's basketball team beat a less talented Purdue team 68-57 at Mackey Arena.

But it wasn't pretty. And it wasn't easy as the Spartans usual fast-paced transition game was slowed down and both teams struggled shooting the ball Saturday.

MSU only trailed once at 1-0.

"I'll take an ugly win over an ugly loss any day," senior swingman Alan Anderson said.

With more than 50 former players and managers in attendance to honor Purdue head coach Gene Keady in his final season, the odds were stacked against MSU (19-4 overall, 10-2 Big Ten).

But MSU head coach Tom Izzo said he knows that the only way to beat a tough, hard-working Purdue team is to dig in and grind out each possession.

"This is a war every time we come to Mackey Arena," Izzo said. "I really believe we matched some of Purdue's intensity but we didn't do a great job of playing smart near the end of the game."

After playing some of their best basketball of the season in the past two weeks, the Spartans struggled, shooting the ball 39.3 percent from the field in the first half.

Purdue's offense was even uglier, shooting 26.9 percent from the field. The Boilermakers were held to 18 points in the first half.

Purdue finished shooting 36.8 percent from the field, in the sixth straight road game MSU has held its opponent under 43 percent.

"Offense might be iffy on the road with the atmosphere, but defense - you can always control," Anderson said.

The Spartans slowly built a 10-point lead in the first half fueled by key baskets from freshman guard Drew Neitzel, who finished with a career-high 10 points.

The Boilermakers (7-16, 3-9) finally built some momentum and cut the lead to five points after guard Brandon McKnight hit a jumper with 15:59 left in the game.

Purdue missed its next seven shots and Keady was called for a technical after arguing that Purdue forward Carl Landry was fouled on the same possession that MSU senior guard Chris Hill might have traveled.

A three-point play by senior guard Kelvin Torbert pushed the lead to 17 points. With just more than six minutes left, the Spartans scored their last field goal of the game and allowed Purdue to cut the lead to 11 points by the game's end.

"It was our lack of making that one big play," Purdue guard David Teague said.

The Spartans dominated on the boards 37-27 and shot 56 percent in the second half - improving their game percentage to 47.2 percent.

Landry, who scored a career-high 31 points against MSU in January, struggled with a knee injury and was held to a career-low at Purdue to seven points and tied the career-low with two rebounds.

Teague scored 15 points and Purdue forward Matt Kiefer and McKnight each added 12.

But the effort wasn't enough as the Spartans had four players in double-digit scoring with 12 points from both junior guard Maurice Ager and Anderson, 10 from Neitzel and 11 from Hill.

MSU, second place in the Big Ten, faces third-place Wisconsin at 7 p.m. Thursday at Breslin Center.