After the Dolphins (3-3) scored the first basket of the game, MSU (6-1) responded with a 13-0 scoring spurt of its own and never lost the lead, nearly tripling the halftime margin. Twelve Spartans scored in the game and four had double-digit point totals.

“We played a lot of guys out there,” MSU head coach Tom Izzo said. “We’re not always going to play 12 guys, so I look at that as not really what we need to do but what we did tonight.”

Senior guard Drew Neitzel, the preseason Big Ten Player of the Year, was held scoreless in the first twenty minutes, but finished with 10 points and seven assists.

“(Neitzel) hasn’t gotten enough shots and some of it was his unselfishness early,” Izzo said. “Some of that was us not getting him enough shots.”

Sophomore guard Ben Smith led the Dolphins with 16 points and five assists.

MSU was able to maintain its lead through the first half, as the closest the Dolphins came was a 30-23 margin with less than two minutes before the break.

Junior forward Marquis Gray set the tone for MSU going into the intermission, taking an alley-oop from freshman guard Kalin Lucas right over Gray’s defender and slamming it home, giving the Spartans a 38-28 lead.

Neitzel got the Spartans rolling in the second half with a fast-break basket at the 17:29 mark to extend the MSU lead to 42-30. The two teams exchanged baskets for a short time, with the Dolphins scoring via perimeter jump shots and MSU taking advantage of the fast break.

MSU finished with 19 fast break points, while Jacksonville had two.

“We talked about that before the game and we talked about that at half,” Jacksonville head coach Cliff Warren said. “They did an excellent job of getting out in transition and make some easy baskets. We were trying to make some shots and press to slow them down. Unfortunately, we didn’t make enough shots to do that.”

With 12:18 remaining, freshman guard Chris Allen had one of three consecutive MSU baskets, two of them from beyond the three-point arc. Neitzel followed with a three-pointer of his own at 8:02, extending the Spartans’ lead to 62-46.

Following Neitzel’s basket, sophomore guard Raymar Morgan went on an individual 10-0 run that included a slam dunk over two Dolphin defenders and two and-one baskets. In the final seven minutes, the Dolphins only managed one field goal while the Spartans upped the margin to 30 points and ended the game on an 18-3 run.

“Raymar Morgan was very, very good,” Izzo said. “His stats are very good but his stats are not indicative of how well he played. I would say it was one of (Morgan’s) best overall games.”

MSU continues play at 9 p.m. Tuesday at Bradley.