No. 24 Michigan State Downs No. 8 Maryland On The Road 78-66
The No. 24 Michigan State Spartans came here to the District and clobbered the No. 8 Maryland Terrapins 78-66. The win improves the men in green’s season record and conference record to 20-9 (12-5).
The Spartans had four players score in double-digits. The Cassius Winston had 20 points (Including a half-court shot at the buzzer of halftime) and six assists. Unfortunately, he also had seven turnovers. Malik Hall had 16 points and six big rebounds. Xavier Tillman had yet another double double with 14 points and 12 rebounds and Mark “ROCKET” Watts has 13 points and three assists, but along with Tillman played suffocating defense.
Malik Hall said of the Spartans keeping their Big Ten hopes alive, "It’s a great feeling you know we crunched the numbers last week and everybody knew what it was coming in and it’s an awesome feeling to start and get rolling at the end right here.”
Maryland Coach Mark Turgeon said of the Spartan offense, “Transition defense and rebounding was the game. I thought we really tried hard defensively. I thought what really makes them hard to guard is a guy named Cassius Winston. There’s not many guys as good as he is in ball screens in recognizing things and making open shots and he was hard. We just could never really get control of the game. We never ever really had control of the game. I think we cut it to 10 in the second half one time and then we went down and late in the game we started switching ball screens. We were better, we got some stops but we couldn't rebound out of it. What makes them good is that they were dialed in tonight and that kid’s terrific.”
The men in the green won the battle of the boards over the Terrapins by a margin of 35-29. The Spartans had a disappointing 12 turnovers.
The Spartan defense allowed Maryland to shoot 43% from the field and 30% from three.
Cassius Winston said of the emergence of freshman Malik Hall and Mark “Rocket” Watts, "It’s that time of the year, been through a lot of wars, been through a lot of battles, been through a lot of ups and downs, but it’s part of being a freshman. We put a lot of faith in those guys, put a lot of confidence in those guys to make those plays and come down big in the stretch.”
The Terrapins never had the lead in the 40 minutes of the game. The Spartans led for 39:04. In all Tom Izzo played 11 players. Six of them scored.
Izzo’s men had 20 assists on 28 baskets. The Spartans shot 43% from three, 47% from the field and 83% from the charity stripe.
The team will return to the hard-court Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in State College, Pennsylvania against Penn State. They will be taking on the No. 14 Nittany Lions. It can be seen on ESPN at 7:00 PM ET.
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