#15 Spartans Take Out Northwestern To Remain Undefeated In Big Ten Play

#15 Spartans Take Out Northwestern To Remain Undefeated In Big Ten Play

Welsh-Ryan Arena

Evanston, IL

The #15 Michigan State Spartans came here to Chicago wanting to be the only Big Ten team to start conference play 2-0 and they did that with a 77-72 takedown of Northwestern. They improved to 8-3 on the season.

The Spartans were led by Cassius Winston who had 21 points and six assists. Xavier Tillman had a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds and Gabe Brown added his first career double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. They are the only Spartans who reached double digits in any category.

Tom Izzo said of the contest that, “Strange game and a strange season so far. Some serious positives. We sat there as a staff watching Northwestern on film and we said boy do we like the pieces that they have. I thought we did a pretty good job, but those kids are going to be good.”

Izzo added, “We had our lead and it was never really more than twelve, got to sixteen, but we had some weird substitutions. There were some pluses. Aaron Henry finally rebounded the ball and he defended really well. Gabe Brown rebounded the ball, so our wings had 18 rebounds.”

The men in green won the battle of the boards 48-24 and the Spartans had and embarrassing 24 turnovers. 24 of the Wildcat points came off of Spartan turnovers. The Spartans had the lead for 39:46 of the 40 minutes in the game.

Northwestern head coach Chris Collins said of the game, “I thought it was a really hard played team by both teams. Obviously Big Ten games are played like that and Michigan State made the plays at the right time to win the game. I think the game could have gotten away from us two or three times, but we executed really well in the second half scoring 45 points against an excellent defensive team.”

Izzo’s men continued their habit of being unselfish. They had 17 assists on 28 baskets. The Spartans shot 43% from three, 46% from the field and a refreshing 86% from the charity stripe.

The team will return to the hard-court Saturday, December 21, 2019, at the Breslin Center against Eastern Michigan University. That game can be seen on BTNN at 7:00 PM.

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