MSU jumped on the Terrapins with an 18-1 run to start the game which proved to be enough for the wire-to-wire victory. Senior forward Marcus Bingham Jr. led the way with 12 points and 11 rebounds and a career-high three made threes. Fellow seniors Joey Hauser and Gabe Brown only combined for 13 points, including a 7-0 run from Brown, but came up with timely baskets in the second half to secure the victory.

Junior forward Malik Hall was once again the closer for the Spartans. He scored 12 of his 17 points in the second half and junior point guard Tyson Walker added 13 points to secure the victory in the final game of the regular season.  

The damage from the seniors started from the jump. Brown and Bingham scored the first 11 points of the game as they looked to make the most of their final appearance. Bingham led the way with eight points in the first 2:45 including back-to-back threes to force an early Maryland timeout. 

Maryland continued to struggle offensively and did not find their first point of the game until the 14:56 mark of the first half on a free throw from Hakim Hart. Hart got Maryland’s first field goal of the game four minutes later to break an 0-14 start from the field.

MSU, meanwhile, continued to find success offensively and pushed their total up to 18 before Maryland found the bottom of the net to maintain a 15-point lead through the first nine minutes. 

The first field goal sparked some life in the Terrapins’ offense who made three of its next four field goals but Michigan State matched the effort to keep the double-digit lead. MSU pushed the lead from 23-11 to 33-13 over the next two minutes thanks to consistent trips to the foul line.

MSU finished the half making six of its last seven shot attempts to close out the strong half and took a 46-26 lead into the halftime locker room. It was the perfect close to a strong first half for the Spartans in which they shot 53.1% while Maryland only shot 28.1%. 

Despite looking lifeless for most of the first half, Maryland landed the first punch in the second half. The Terrapins hit its first four shots to go on a 10-0 run in the first 2:24 of the half to cut Michigan State’s lead to 46-36. 

Michigan State answered the run with a 10-0 run of its own over the next 2:40 thanks to a pair of threes from Hauser and Walker to push the lead back to 20 points. 

Maryland senior guard Eric Ayala was not done filling it up in an attempt to make the game competitive. Ayala scored 15 of his game-high 19 points in the first nine minutes of the second half on five threes to try to keep pace with MSU’s offense single-handedly. 

The effort worked as his threes to answer MSU’s run powered a 12-0 Maryland run to cut MSU’s lead to single digits with 8:50 left for the first time since the 17:43 mark in the first half. MSU stopped the run but only briefly as a slew of Spartan turnovers allowed Maryland to cut the lead to 61-58 with seven minutes left. 

Brown was the savior to curb the collapse for MSU. Brown went on a personal 7-0 run, including a cold-blooded step-back three, to push MSU’s lead back to 10 points once again heading into the final stretch.

With the win, Michigan State finished the regular season with a 20-11 record and 11-9 conference record.