Grinz On Green: Spartans End 2016 On A High Note
12/31/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Steve Grinczel, MSUSpartans.com Online Columnist
EAST LANSING, Mich. â€" Michigan State seemingly had it all while opening up a 19-point lead in the first 13 minutes of Friday night's Big Ten home-opener against Northwestern.
Then the Spartans flirted with losing it all while clinging to what had dwindled into a precarious four-point edge with under eight minutes remaining, only to regain control of the situation in a 61-52 year-ending victory Friday night at the Breslin Center.
Such contortions are to be expected by freshman-laden team and will prove to be more valuable heading into 2017 with a 2-0 conference record than a 30-point walk in the park might have been.
"Like I keep saying, the biggest thing is our effort," said first-year starting point guard Cassius Winston. "We're playing harder for longer periods of time. We still have lapses. Teams go on runs (against us); that's the game of basketball, but we fight through 'em.
"We just keep fighting, making big stops, making big plays, diving on the floor and things like that, and that's how we have to play to win. I see it getting better. Tonight was maybe better than the last game. We still had a lapse but we played harder for longer and as the season goes we're going to keep improving."
The game was a mirror-image of Tuesday's 75-74 overtime win at Minnesota, where MSU fell behind by 15 points in the first half had had to find a way to claw out a victory. This time, the Spartans had to figure out how to preserve one.
Winston, who scored two points before fouling out of his Big Ten debut in Minneapolis, reversed his fortunes with 15 points and six assists against the Wildcats. It was the opinion of Northwestern coach Chris Collins that Winston's steadying hand was a key to the Spartans' ability to weather adversity, along with their determined defense in the second half.
The Wildcats made just 8 of 28 shots (28.6 percent) after intermission and 35.8 percent overall. Each of Northwestern's five possessions when it could have gotten to within two or one came up empty against Michigan State's salty defense.
The catalyst for MSU's defensive prowess was sophomore guard Matt McQuaid, a long-range scorer by trade whose 1-for-3 shooting was only good enough to earn him two minutes on the floor, Izzo said, but who played 20 because of his effort without the ball.
With 11 points, Wildcat guard Scottie Lindsey finished five below his team-leading average and the bulk of his scoring didn't come when McQuaid was guarding him, Izzo said. And while injuries and departures (some expected, some not) have left Izzo with the smallest front line of his head-coaching career, Michigan State held a commanding 43-27 advantage in another effort-related category â€" rebounding.
"We've just learned how to fight and play hard," Winston said. "All season coach has been telling us how hard we've got to play and that we're not playing with that intensity-level, but the last three games we've been playing with that high motor which covers up so many mistakes. There are so many areas that we lack in that the way we play and how hard we play makes up for it."
Then there was senior guard Alvin Ellis III, who came off the bench to show his 20-point, 36-minute breakout game against Minnesota wasn't a fluke by leading the Spartans with 16 (along with eight rebounds) in 23 minutes against Northwestern.
Strong back-to-back performance doesn't equate to a breakthrough stretch over the course of a career, but it's a promising development as MSU strives to hold down the fort until freshman phenom Miles Bridges returns to full strength from a foot injury.
"I think it was important just to let my team know where my mind is," Ellis said. "We're going to need that consistency all season, that we can't take plays off and have a lapse like we did when we played Minnesota in the first half."
Despite watching from the bench for the seventh straight contest, Bridges remains atop Michigan State's scoring list with 16.6 much-needed points per game. Bridges suited up for the first time in a month, went through warm-up drills and even dunked but Izzo is determined to resist the temptation of playing him until he is completely healed.
With the Breslin environment electrified by the rowdy Izzone Reunion filling in for the MSU students away on holiday break, and a fast break to match, the Spartans got off to such a fast 28-9 start they may have felt they had this life-without-Bridges thing figured out.
Such illusions were soundly shattered by the Wildcats, who came in with an admirable 12-2 record that included wins over Texas and Wake Forest and two- and four-point losses to Butler and Notre Dame, respectively.
"We've been stressing since the beginning of the season that we know teams aren't going to give up, especially in the Big Ten," Ellis said. "It's going to be a tough game every night because we know it's easy for them to make a run and it can be gone like that, so we just have to stay locked in.
"I think we did a great job of rallying together. Sometimes when things went bad we'd try to go away from things that weren't working and then we'd get in bigger trouble than we were. But I think we did a great job of just focusing in and taking our time with things."
The Spartans could have panicked as Northwestern battered them with a 23-8 run that carried over from the end of the first half and into the early stages of the second but they didn't, even as freshman big man Nick Ward became increasingly frustrated by the Wildcats' harassing double-teams in the low post. Ward finished with 11 points, half as many as he had three nights earlier while leading the comeback against the Gophers.
"To his credit, he settled down in the second half and even though he didn't score as much and we didn't get him as many shots he did a pretty good job defensively and rebounding the ball," Izzo said. "But we've got a lot of growing up to do yet, and that's the way it's going to be with a young group.
"I like it more when guys respond. (Ward) responded and that's a big positive. We've gutted some things out. I've questioned their toughness and I did it publicly because I'm honest. I also questioned how hard we're playing all the time, but it's not their fault because they don't know. I think today, we took another major step. The key will be, I'm not satisfied but if they are we're in trouble because we're just not one of those teams that's going to overpower anybody."
