With a week off between last Tuesday’s win at Wisconsin and Tuesday night’s game against Iowa, Tom Izzo didn’t know what to expect from his team.
The No. 6 men’s basketball head coach didn’t have much to worry about as the Spartans (15-2 overall, 4-0 Big Ten) handled Iowa (10-8, 2-3) 95-61 and extended their win streak to 15 games.
The win streak is easy to focus on, but senior forward Draymond Green said it’s not at the front of his mind.
“I get lost with how many games it’s at because I really don’t care about it,” Green said. “The last 15 games don’t matter, they’re in the books. We just have to focus on one game at a time.”
MSU went on a 10-2 run after Iowa won the opening tip supported by a boisterous Izzone.
The Izzone, following Izzo’s challenge Monday, sounded much improved, the coach said.
“I thought they were great,” Izzo said. “We need them to be great, and tonight they took a step in that direction just like our team did.”
The Spartans shot 59 percent in the first half, led by as many as 24 and went into halftime leading the Hawkeyes 46-24.
MSU came out of halftime just as hot and shot 64.3 percent in the second half as the Spartans coasted to the end of the game. The team shot 61.7 percent on the game.
Green said the many of the players have worked extra outside of practice, leading to the Tuesday’s showing.
“You don’t have many nights where you shoot the ball like we did tonight,” Green said. “But the way guys have been coming in and shooting extra, it’s paying off for us.”
Although the high shooting percentage is nice, junior center Derrick Nix said it won’t go to the team’s heads.
“Our confidence is going, but at the same time we know we can’t let up,” Nix said. “Any given night in the Big Ten you can lose, so we’re just trying to open it up early.”
With just 10 assists in each of the prior two games, the Spartans looked much more in sync with 25 assists. The assists included a veteran-looking lob by freshman guard Brandan Kearney to Green and a give-and-go transition slam by senior guard Brandon Wood through Green.
The team effort was headed by Appling and Green, who had nine and five assists, respectively. Kearney added four.
The coach didn’t have much bad to say on the night but praised the assists in particular.
“It’s the most impressive thing of the night,” Izzo said. “The unselfishness is second to none. I just thought guys were so unselfish. We got a lot from a lot of guys.”
Green finished the game with 22 points and nine rebounds and Appling scored 15.
Although Izzo said he was happy with the contribution he received from his whole roster, he’s been on the opposite side of lopsided games like this before.
“(It was) one of those strange games, Iowa didn’t play as well as we’ve seen on film — they’ve been playing really well,” Izzo said. “It was just one of those games where everything went right for us and everything went wrong for them.”
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