MSU men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo talks about his team’s 64-61 overtime win against No. 21 Wisconsin on Tuesday night at Breslin Center. Izzo discusses his team coming together and winning a game he called a “character check.”
With the MSU men’s basketball team trailing No. 20 Wisconsin by as much as nine in the final three minutes, one comment might have turned the momentum.
With MSU at the free-throw line and the Breslin Center crowd silent, a man in the crowd shouted sarcastically, “Have Draymond shoot another three!”
Junior forward Draymond Green’s shot selection had frustrated fans, so what did Green do on the next MSU possession? He hit a 3-pointer.
Green’s bucket started a furious 9-0 MSU run in the final 2:30 to send the game into overtime, where the Spartans eventually won, 64-61. Tuesday night’s victory moves the team to 11-5 overall and 3-1 in the Big Ten.
“Everybody stuck together and we said we had to stick together before the game, no matter how it was going,” Green said. “Usually when you’re down nine with under 3 minutes to go, a lot of teams would give up. We could have given up, but we said we’re going to stick together and fight through it. We knew we need this win bad and we stuck together and fought through it.”
With 2:30 to play, Wisconsin (12-4, 2-2) led MSU by nine points, but after Green’s 3-pointer, senior guard Kalin Lucas split a pair of free throws, giving Wisconsin a 5-point cushion with a little more than a minute to play. Pressure from junior forward Delvon Roe and senior guard Mike Kebler forced a Wisconsin turnover and a breakaway dunk for freshman guard Keith Appling, cutting the deficit to three with 1:05 to play.
Behind a raucous Breslin crowd — not full because of both the weather and some fans who left early — MSU forced Wisconsin to turn the ball over on the inbounds play. And on cue, junior guard Korie Lucious buried a 3-pointer with 48 seconds left to tie the game and blow the roof off Breslin.
“It’s never under control; take care of the ball, make some plays. I liked our tenacity, I liked how hard our guys played for the most part,” Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan said. “We knew they were ready for a run, knew they had to get something going.”
In overtime, Green scored eight of MSU’s 11 points en route to a career-high 26 points to go with nine rebounds and four assists.
After Lucas split a pair of free throws with 29 seconds left, the Badgers had a shot to win. But guard Jordan Taylor, who led Wisconsin with 21 points, missed a jump shot and free throws by Lucas all but sealed the game.
In addition to clutch free-throw shooting, Lucas finished the game with 17 points and six assists.
MSU turned the ball over just 11 times and out-rebounded the Badgers, 39-30. Taylor also led the Badgers with seven rebounds.
Although MSU head coach Tom Izzo moves to 6-12 all-time against Bo Ryan, the Badgers haven’t won at Breslin since 2004.
With two of the next three games on the road against ranked opponents, Tuesday’s win kept MSU from falling far behind in the Big Ten title race early in the conference season.
“I’ve never seen a bunch of guys get knocked down more times than they got knocked down and in every huddle they still thought they could win,” Izzo said.
“We haven’t solved all our problems, we’re not ready to take on the world, but we did make a big step in learning something about ourselves.”
Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
