Freshman guard Mike Kebler works to find an opening to shoot Wednesday evening against Penn State at Breslin Center.
Mike Kebler hit a jump shot with less than a minute to go Wednesday night, extending the MSU men’s basketball team’s lead against Penn State to 86-47.
Judging by the crowd and his teammates’ reactions, it might as well have been a game-winning buzzer beater.
Kebler, a walk-on freshman guard, was one of 12 MSU players to score in MSU’s annihilation of Penn State. With more than one-fourth of the game left to be played, MSU head coach Tom Izzo began emptying his bench, allowing some of his younger and more inexperienced players a chance to play.
“It felt good,” freshman guard Chris Allen said. “That was the first time we really played together since the Grand Valley game, most of the freshmen and sophomores.”
The MSU bench outscored the Penn State reserves 37-12. Kebler scored his first basket of his short MSU career, junior forward Marquise Gray had what Izzo called one of Gray’s best games of the season, and sophomore guard Isaiah Dahlman had a season-high six points.
Stats don’t lie
There are good and bad things Izzo looks at on the stat sheets after games: assist-to-turnover ratio, rebounds and turnovers.
On Wednesday, his hopes were realities.
MSU had a season-low seven turnovers and assists on 30-of-35 field goals. It also outrebounded the Nittany Lions by a 13-board margin, 38-25.
“That’s a lot of unselfish play,” Izzo said. “Just about everybody played well and it’s hard that it’s at somebody’s expense, but we needed a game like this after what we’ve gone through in the last couple of weeks.”
The Spartans have been facing turnover totals of nearly 20 in past Big Ten contests, including 19 in losses at Purdue and Indiana.
“We just wanted to be solid, we didn’t want to make any unbelievable passes or anything like that,” senior guard Drew Neitzel said.
Blast from the past
The Spartans received a visit from Hall of Famer Earvin “Magic” Johnson at practice Monday and got a few words of inspiration, which sophomore forward Raymar Morgan said motivated the team on Wednesday night.
“Magic told us play with a purpose, that’s what we tried to do, and we’re going to try to do to finish out the year — playing with a purpose and playing hard. I think some of us lost it losing and got down on ourselves,” Morgan said.
Izzo said on Tuesday that former MSU standouts Mateen Cleaves and Antonio Smith paid the team a visit. Izzo said that after the alumni visited, he just wanted his team to play at the level former Spartans expect.
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