Michigan State Spartans Down Northwestern Wildcats in Overtime 84-77

Michigan State Spartans Down Northwestern Wildcats in Overtime 84-77 East Lansing, MI Breslin Center On a rare noon edition of Big Ten basketball the

Michigan State Spartans Down Northwestern Wildcats in Overtime 84-77

East Lansing, MI

Breslin Center

On a rare noon edition of Big Ten basketball the Michigan State Spartans improved their season record to 12-5 (3-1) with an overtime win 84-77 over a vastly improving Wildcat team.

The Wildcats are not the team of old. Coach Chris Collins has done an amazing job in just one year, but he said they aren’t looking for moral victories. I asked him about his improving squad and he told me, “Obviously it is a disappointing finish for us today. I’m heartbroken for our team because I felt we should have won the game. We needed to win that game in regulation. That is why they are a really good team. It’s a process for us. We are getting better. We have a lot of new guys. None of our guys are happy we played to overtime. We wanted to win.”

Izzo “Every time I think we take a step forward we take a step back. Today was not a performance I am proud of. This team wanted to be a pretty boy team a couple of times. Today we won one that they deserved to win. We just didn’t perform like you have to perform. I don’t know what to say about it.”

Michigan State barely won the rebounding battle 32-31, but MSU did have 18 assists on 31 baskets. Travis Trice led MSU in scoring again with 18. All five starters for MSU ended up in double digits. MSU shot 50% for the game from the field and 73% from the line. MSU also shot 10 more free throws than Northwestern 26-16.

Trice completed a double double by adding 10 assists and Branden Dawson led on the boards with nine. He said his improved play can be attributed to being, “More comfortable” and “Learning to hear what Coach Izzo is saying more than how he says it. We are all emotional in games.”

Collins said, “When you play Michigan State they are standard of toughness in this league.” Izzo said of that quote, “I’m going to have fun. This is going to be six of the craziest days. We will get tougher, I’m not worried about that.”

Izzo elaborated on his frustration saying, “There wasn’t one moment of that game I felt good. We didn’t rebound the ball and we have a couple of guys that just look out of it. Denzel looks out of it, Costello looks out of it…We are going to get them tested (medically). Our identity of 95% of successful programs you got to defend and you got to rebound.”

I spoke with both Valentine and Costello and they admitted that they are not feeling well physically. Super assistant Mike Garland said of the Spartans that, “Every game we’ve lost we’ve strayed from what gives us the best chance to win.” He’s 100% accurate.”

The Spartans next game is at Maryland on Saturday night. That game tips at 4pm and can be seen on CBS.