While many Spartans are focused on the Rose Bowl game in California, the No. 5 men’s basketball team kicked off the Big Ten season with a 79-63 win against Penn State Tuesday afternoon.
Junior forward Branden Dawson was the leading scorer with 20 points and nine rebounds.
Penn State dominated early, and got off to a quick 10-3 lead.
Fresh off his suspension, redshirt freshman forward Kenny Kaminski hit a pair of three-pointers to bring the Spartans within five points.
A dunk by junior forward Brenden Dawson with just over seven minutes to play in the half tied the game at 27.
MSU has averaged 10 turnovers a game so far this season, but committed nine in the first half.
The combination of hot Penn State shooters and poor rebounding on both ends of the floor sunk the Spartans, as they went into the locker room trailing 47-41.
But MSU looked like a different team in the second half.
The Spartans stormed out if the gate after the break and scored the first nine points to take the lead.
They went on a 16-2 run to put the game out of reach.
Penn State tried to get back into it with a couple three-pointers by Big Ten leading scorer D.J. Newbill, but the Spartans were too much.
The Spartans go on the road to take on Indiana in their first game of 2014 on Jan. 4 in Bloomington, Ind.
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