“The turnovers were almost borderline ridiculous,” said head coach Tom Izzo of his team’s 20 turnovers. “Guys did not take care of the ball like they have to.”

While MSU was turning the ball over, the Warhawks were catching fire from beyond the arc, as Louisiana-Monroe guard Jordan Payne — who scored a game high 26 points — and the Warhawks connected on three 3-pointers to tie the game at 51 a piece with 15 minutes to go.

With MSU down 57-56 with 13 minutes remaining, the Spartans finally unveiled their fast break attack, rattling off an 11-0 run to lead 67-57 heading into the under-eight media time out.

The Warhawks failed to get much closer than seven points down the rest of the way, as their hot shooting hand quickly turned cold.

The Spartans, who shot 24-of-30 from the free throw line, iced their lead from the charity stripe.

“I thought our team competed hard,” said Louisiana-Monroe head coach Orlando Early. “But we need to do a better job of finishing around the basket and not settling for so many three-point shots.”

Freshman guard Chris Allen led the Spartans with 17 points and grabbed six rebounds.

Sophomore forward Raymar Morgan, who earned MVP honors for the east region of the CBE Classic, put on another dominating performance scoring 13 points and grabbing 14 rebounds.

“We had a pretty balanced scoring night,” said senior guard Drew Neitzel, who had 15 points and five assists. “The more balanced we are, the harder it is to stop us.”

While the balanced scoring may make the Spartans more dangerous to stop, both Izzo and Neitzel agreed that the preseason All-American needs to take more shots.

“No, it’s not (enough),” Izzo said about Neitzel attempting only five shots. “I thought the first two games when he took 15, 16 shots was great. I thought he passed up some shots tonight, and I thought we found ways not to get him shots.”

The Spartans move on to the next round of the CBE Classic, and play Missouri on Monday in Kansas City.