Spartan Hoops Courtside: Lessons Learned In Victory

Jan. 21, 2010

EAST LANSING, Mich. - It's not easy for a Spartan basketball team to accomplish a first in the Coach Tom Izzo era.

But after Wednesday night's 70-63 victory over Iowa - their second in 12 days over the Hawkeyes - the sixth-ranked Spartans did just that by starting 6-0 in Big Ten play.

MSU now sits atop the Big Ten standings with a two-game lead in the loss column over Illinois and Wisconsin. Five other teams have three losses in league action.

The Spartans didn't shake their recent trend of slow starts, as Iowa led most of the first 10 minutes of the game. Hawkeye forward Jarryd Cole's layup with 10:39 left in the half put Iowa up, 19-14.

From there, Iowa only scored four points the rest of the half.

While the slow starts have been a pattern for the Spartans, closing the first half on a strong run has been one as well. In the last three home games heading into halftime, MSU has gone on a 13-4 run against Minnesota, an 18-5 run against Illinois, and a 21-4 run tonight.

Offensively, Durrell Summers led the Spartans with 12 points in the first half, while Raymar Morgan chipped in eight.

"My confidence is pretty good," said Morgan, who poured in 16 points overall and has been hot the past two games, shooting 67 percent from the field (14-for-21). "My teammates are doing a great job of finding me in plays where I can create for myself and put the ball in the basket. I'm feeling more comfortable out there."

MSU continued its momentum to start the second half, building a lead as large as 19 points at 55-36 on a Korie Lucious layup with just over 11 minutes remaining. The Spartans maintained a 15-point cushion as late as the seven-minute mark after Chris Allen hit a jumper. It would be the last field goal for the Spartans for nearly six minutes.

In that span, the underdog Hawkeyes kept trimming the lead as the time slowly ticked away, until a 3-pointer by Matt Gatens with 2:05 left suddenly made it a 3-point game at 64-61.

"If you want to be a championship team, you just can't have that happen," Draymond Green said of letting a 19-point lead slip to three in the second half. "You're going to have some games like that where you're going to have to edge out, but you want to limit them as much as you can."

Although it was close - a little too close - the Spartans refused to push the panic button. Instead, Lucious aggressively attacked the basket and found a wide-open lane for an easy layup, giving the Spartans a 66-61 advantage.

"We called a play, and I saw a big man switch on me, so I just tried to take advantage of the mismatch," said Lucious. "I saw a lane and I just drove it. It was either try and get fouled or just get the layup, and the layup was there."

MSU iced the game with four free throws in the final minute to claim the 70-63 win.

Following the game, however, Michigan State's fast start was not the main topic of conversation.

No, it was passion. And it came from Izzo himself.

"I'm more concerned whether we play with more sense of urgency and the things that have to be done to be a good team," Izzo said when asked of his career-best start in Big Ten action. "I want this team to start growing up and start playing with a sense of urgency and passion.

"We're not where we need to be. We're 6-0, and there's some other teams that have worse problems than we do. But am I looking perfection? You're right. And I'm not going to stop until we get it because I think we have good enough players to get it."

Wanting more from his team and not being satisfied with a 6-0 Big Ten start is why Izzo has led Michigan State to five Big Ten regular-season titles. He knows how long the grueling 18-game conference season can be.

The message was not lost on his players.

"Bottom line, we just have to play better," said Green.

"It was all on us - we can't let those kind of runs happen," said Morgan.

"We can still play better as a team," Kalin Lucas said. "We have to learn from these games because it's going to be tough on the road."

The Spartans will look to tie the school record for the best start in the Big Ten on Saturday at Minnesota, trying to match the 1977-78 club that went 7-0 en route to finishing 15-3 and claiming the conference crown.

Until then, expect the Spartans to have focused and intense practices the next two days as they prepare for another physical tussle against the Gophers in The Barn. MSU won a rough defensive battle, 60-53, just a week ago at the Breslin Center.

But as they found out this evening, it's even harder to beat a team the second time around.