Grinz On Green: Spartans Learn Lessons In Victory
12/3/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Steve Grinczel, MSUSpartans.com Online Columnist
When a defeat comes wrapped in a victory, it's the best of both worlds, as No. 3 Michigan State discovered with is 71-67 come-from-behind win against an aggressive Louisville team that brought and unblemished record into the Breslin Center.
The Spartans trailed by as many as 13 points before dropping the first half, 32-29, and were dutifully humbled at intermission by what felt like a losing effort in front of an energized crowd of 14,797. Michigan State rallied for their first lead when Kenny Goins, the former walk-on, emerged from the shadows to nail a mid-range jumper with 6:47 remaining.
With the Izzone student cheering section performing its job at full capacity, the Spartans finished theirs behind 25 points from Denzel Valentine and 20 by Bryn Forbes to improve to 8-0. But the split-personality performance left Coach Tom Izzo with plenty to critique without having to deal with the remorse of a defeat in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge.
"That was a typical Louisville-Michigan State game, a white-knuckler right down to the end," Izzo said. "I feel fortunate to win. I almost feel like we stole it, and yet you've got to do that to have great seasons â€" you've got to win some games, I won't say didn't deserve because we fought back, but I thought (the Cardinals) played well for a long period of time.
"I'm just sitting here happy with a win, and more impressed by Louisville than Michigan State at this point because they played so doggone hard."
Meantime, freshmen Deyonta Davis and Matt McQuaid, who enjoyed some head-turning early success in wins over No. 4 Kansas and Providence, got an education in big-time hoops.
"D.D. (Davis) had a little bit of a problem adjusting to new things on the run, and that's hard for a freshman, and so did Matt McQuaid, and that's part of the growing process," Izzo said. "As Denzel said to the team after the game, if you can learn a lot from a win instead of a loss that normally happens, make sure you take advantage of that.
"I think we learned a lot about our team, and I think we learned a lot about executing, and missed free throws and different things that almost cost us."
The Spartans also reprised the uncanny resolve they showed in March when they came back from an eight-point deficit against the Cardinals in the NCAA Tournament East Regional to win 76-70 and advance to the Final Four.
It was MSU's seventh game in 15 days, and came on the heels of Sunday's draining 77-64 victory over Providence in the championship game of the Wooden Legacy tournament in Anaheim, Calif., which was followed by a red-eye flight that brought the team home early Monday morning.
That the Spartans would come out with heavy legs under such circumstances apparently never occurred to them and the way they played in the first 20 minutes was unacceptable regardless. And oh by the way, Louisville's frontcourt featured the 6-foot-10 tandem of Mangok Mathiang and Chinanu Onuaku, with 7-0 Anas Mahmoud coming in off the bench, prompting Izzo's comparison to playing an NBA team.
"It was our first big home game and credit to our fans," Valentine said. "They were amazing and we kind of let them down in the first half. They were so excited to see us play, coming off a championship win and being ranked No. 3 in the nation, and Louisville came out and smacked us in the mouth.
"They were more ready to play than we were, and we kind of took that to heart at halftime. We looked ourselves in the mirror and wanted to come out and play with intensity, play for us, play for our program and play for our fans. If we would have come out in the first half like we did in the second half, we would have probably won that game by 10 or so, but credit Louisville."
By going through that process, however, Michigan State gained even more insight into hidden potential of its remarkable depth. Goins, the 6-6 redshirt freshman who is just rounding back into playing shape after an eight-week recovery from sports hernia surgery, proved to be the unlikely catalyst this time.
After providing a spark off the bench with six rebounds in the first half, Izzo started Goins in the second and he added seven more for a career-high 13. But it was his timely 15-foot jumper from the right elbow that gave MSU a 55-53 lead and got the team over the hump after tying the score on three previous occasions. Goins, who played 22 minutes against Louisville after totaling 37 in the first seven games, just happened to be the perfect answer to the Cardinals' size and zone-press defense.
"We learned how to grind out games and who to look for when they're open," Valentine said. "We're so deep, Kenny Goins is probably the 11th man on our depth chart but he came in and got athletic rebounds for us. He showed big-time toughness, he played with grit and he wasn't scared.
"He has long arms and used it to his advantage. Those guys were 7-foot in the paint and he was going up against them and grabbing rebounds. That shows that he has heart."
Goins' five points was one more than the career-high he matched three days earlier against the Friars and his new rebound standard is nine better than the personal best he had against Boise State, also in California.
"At the beginning of the season, I would have said there wasn't a chance of this happening," Goins said. "But I'm ready when my number's called. Every time the ball went up, I wanted it. I wouldn't say I filled a void. Top to bottom, we've all got to play, we've all got to do our role.
"We knew they were going to be taller than us, we knew they were going to play hard and were going to come in and punch us in the mouth, which I think they did in the first half. But we wanted to dominate them on the boards because they were No. 1 on the boards in the nation and we wanted to change it."
The Spartans did indeed out-rebound Louisville, 40-30, but the biggest basket of Goins' career, so far, was the center of conversation afterward.
"I'm always looking to score," he said. "I think everyone around here knows I've got a jump shot, maybe not three-range, but I can knock down an open mid-range. When I turned around, it seemed like I was the only one on the floor."
After Goins set things in motion, the Spartans started to pull away with back-to-back 3-pointers by Forbes and Valentine from the left and right corners, and Davis' dunk off Valentine's lob pass into the low post.
"We kind of put ourselves in a bad position in the first half and they were the aggressors," Forbes said. "It took us awhile to respond to what they were doing, but I think once we starting picking it up, we started clicking and guys started doing things they aren't used to doing.
"It's great to know we can not put two halves together against a great Louisville team and still be tough enough to pull it out. It's relieving to know that guys like Kenny Goins, who wasn't even playing that many minutes, can step up in crunch time and give us 13 huge rebounds that won us the game."
