The Spartans (26-8) continue their road to the Final Four on Saturday against No. 4 Pittsburgh.

“I think we did a great job of moving the ball early,” MSU head coach Tom Izzo said. “We looked like a basketball team — 19 assists on 26 baskets. That says a lot about your team.”

With a 35-26 lead at halftime, the Spartans came back onto the floor charged up, getting a dunk from senior center Drew Naymick and a transition slam and a 3-pointer from sophomore forward Raymar Morgan. The baskets started a 13-4 run that gave MSU a 48-30 lead with 12:30 to play.

After trading baskets in bunches until the 5:45 mark, Temple (21-13) gained some momentum and found a spark in forward Mark Tyndale, who had been ice-cold for much of the contest.

“We really couldn’t run a lot of our sets,” Temple head coach Fran Dunphy said. “At some points, we just let Mark (Tyndale) make plays. They did a good job of taking that next pass away. I don’t think we’re a great passing team, but there were opportunities to post feed and we didn’t take advantage of that.”

Tyndale, the Owls’ second-leading scorer during the regular-season, tallied 12 points in the final 10 minutes, finishing with a game-high 16. Temple’s best scorer, guard Dionte Christmas, was a ghost offensively, scoring only three points on 1-for-12 shooting.

“Our main goal was to have a hand up (on Christmas) at all times,” MSU freshman guard Kalin Lucas said. “And as far as the weak-side help, we had to make sure we had six eyes on him.”

Dunphy said the MSU defense was some of the best he’s ever seen played against Christmas.

“It’s a terrific man-to-man defensive basketball team,” he said. “They switched out to Dionte (Christmas) great. He was always contested. Dionte was being guarded like he’s never been guarded before.”

Izzo said he applies the six-eyes defense when one team has a prolific scorer that needs extra attention by assigning one main defender with two helpers.

The Owls cut the lead to 10 with just under four minutes to play, getting four consecutive layups — but ran out of time as junior guard Travis Walton and freshman guard Kalin Lucas both sank free throws down the stretch when Temple tried stopping the clock to get extra possessions.

Morgan paced MSU with a team-high 15 points, while two other Spartans scored in double digits — senior center Drew Naymick with 10 and freshman guard Chris Allen with 12.

“This is a great feeling — just more confidence for the next game,” Allen said. “We are still going to be playing on this court with this crowd. It’s a great feeling.”

Senior guard Drew Neitzel did not continue his you-can’t-stop-me offense from the Big Ten Tournament — he finished the game with five points on 2-for-11 shooting.

“Don’t kid yourself, Drew Neitzel’s still very valuable in different ways (other than scoring),” Izzo said. “We are gonna need him if we are gonna get anywhere in this tournament. He was still a cheerleader in the huddle.”

Unlike MSU’s last game against Wisconsin on Sunday, fouls seemed almost nonexistent early on, as the referees allowed physicality and banging down low in the post. The first whistle didn’t come until the 14:04 mark in the first half.

“I think the refs did a very good job,” Lucas said. “They just let us play, and I think we did a very good job with that. We just played our game.”

Temple struggled shooting the ball all half, finishing with a 29.6 percentage from the field — including 12.5 percent from their two best scorers. The Spartans shot 48.3 percent, racking up 10 assists on 14 buckets.

Christmas, who scored in double digits in all but one of Temple’s games this season, couldn’t find his rhythm early, going 0-for-4 in the first half.

And Tyndale also was quiet in the first 20 minutes, contributing two points on 1-for-4 shooting.

“It was just good help defense and it was very physical,” Christmas said. “That was one of the most physical teams I played against ever.”