This Monday, January 13, marked the official end of vacation for Michigan State students as they returned to campus for the spring semester. Many times the end of the holidays and the restart of classes can cause a brutal and slow start to the New Year, adapting to the slow pace of the winter holidays. The Michigan State Basketball Spartans seemed to have a little of that end-of-holiday blues in the first half tonight against Indiana. Well, that goes for everyone except Jeremy Fears. If the rest of the Spartans rolled out of bed late and groaned to get back to their second-semester curriculum, Fears was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, arriving early to take a front-row seat in his lecture hall and introduce himself to his new professors. He scored the first ten points for MSU and held the line while the rest of his teammates were still drinking their morning coffees. Jeremy finished the night with an impressive 23 points and 10 assists, and once the rest of the class decided to show up, Michigan State was able to pull out a resounding 81-60 victory over the Indiana Hoosiers. Let’s recap.
Both teams came out firing from deep early, with 10 of the game’s first 11 field goals coming from three-pointers. IU got 2 in its first 4; while for MSU, Jeremy Fears knocked down the lone three in a 1-8 start from long range en route to his aforementioned first 10 Spartan points of the game. After scoring a layup to tie the score at 8, Indiana’s Sam Alexis started a quick 6-0 run for the visitors with a dunk at the 14:14 mark, a run that would extend into a 9-2 run. A pair of MSU turnovers helped spark IU’s run, along with an early second foul on Carson Cooper, sending him to the bench for the rest of the half.
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Jaxon Kohler finally decided to join the scoring with a 3-point field goal with 10:11 left in the half, and the Spartans were finally able to make back-to-back defensive stops against Indiana and its slide-screen-heavy offense, keeping the score at 17-15 in favor of the Hoosiers. Both teams would trade buckets over the next few minutes, with most of the Spartan production coming once again thanks to PG Jeremy Fears. Jeremy would score the 17th of his 19 first-half points at the 5:50 mark, making it a one-point game at MSU 21-IU 22. Lamar Wilkerson immediately called it back with a traveling violation, and the Spartans took advantage on a hustle play by Kur Teng that led to a three-pointer by Jordan Scott to take the lead at 24-22. MSU never looked back.
Teng’s hustle earned him a spot on the court for the rest of the 1H, and it paid off as he was able to power up and knock down two threes and two long ones in the final four minutes of the half. The Spartans were able to demonstrate strong offensive rebounding, earning several second-chance points thanks to Jaxon Kohler, taking over inside for Cooper, his accomplice, relegated to the bench. It wasn’t the prettiest half, but State held a 39-32 lead into the middle of this game.
The second half got off to a back-and-forth start, with Lamar Wilkerson opening the scoring with a long ball, reminding the Breslin Center crowd that they are, in fact, leading the Big Ten in points per game. The Spartans responded with a pair of free throws from Kohler and Coen Carr’s first points of the night on a mid-range jumper, while Connor Enright and Tucker DeVries hit jumpers of their own to keep the game within reach.
MSU would trade baskets with the Hoosiers (i.e. Wilkerson) again until 11:19 of the second half. Indiana had fought hard to keep the game tied at 53, but the ever-timely Jordan Scott would give the Spartans the lead back with a jumper from the free throw line, and then it was time for the two most athletic players on the court to shine.
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Cam Ward took over for Michigan State and instantly delivered on his patented “grown man” and one. The Breslin crowd started to feel it. After making his free throw, a Jaxon Kohler steal led to a Coen Carr tomahawk and a seven-point lead. The Breslin crowd was on its feet, and it seemed as if MSU’s depth had finally worn down the Hoosiers. They were right. MSU had found its groove and would stretch the run to a 19-0 run and take Indiana out of the game, with almost everyone contributing. Scott took down three more. Kohler remained his double-double self. Cooper finally entered the mix with points from the charity stripe. And orchestrating all of this was the floor general, Jeremy Fears.
Indiana would finally have another chance to fall with 4:34 left to play, but 55-72 quickly became 55-81 with Michigan State adding another 9 points. IU mustered five more points off a Nick Dorn 3-pointer and a Trent Sisly slam, but it was too little, too late. Nothing could stop the Walton twins and Nick Sanders from getting some minutes of conference play as State would take home the 81-60 victory and improve to 15-2 (5-1) on the season.
Takeaway meals
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This team will go as far as Jeremy Fears can take them. When the Spartan offense is firing on all cylinders, running in transition, lobbing and hitting outside shots, it’s easy to notice Fears’ high assist count and support him. But tonight in East Lansing, it was Fears who single-handedly kept the first-half Spartans in the game. Robbie Hummel on the Peacock broadcast commented that Izzo could have challenged Jeremy to be more assertive on offense. That was it. Despite poor offensive shooting, Fears scored floaters, layups and mid-range shots when the rest of State’s offense could do nothing. Fears kept Michigan State holding on until the rest of their teammates finally recovered.
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Teng and Scott continue to improve. As Tom Izzo mentioned in his postgame interview, “We’re getting better, but we’re getting better slowly.” This is certainly the case with the young Spartan couple. While it’s amazing what a difference it makes to MSU’s offensive attack when Kur and Jordan hit outside shots, the quick plays provided by these two wings had a huge impact throughout tonight’s game. Both reached double figures with 11 points each and went a combined 8-16 on three-pointers.
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The defensive adjustments at halftime made the difference. At first, Indiana’s five-out, spaced-out, NBA-style basketball style seemed to be effective. Almost every player on his team can throw the long ball, and Izzo and company decided to combat this by aggressively “covering” each screen. However, IU coach Darian DeVries came prepared and drew a variety of quick screens to the basket that used MSU’s constant coverage against them. While it wasn’t immediately evident early in the second period, it began to show in State’s 19-0 run the improvement in help-side defense from off-ball defenders, avoiding easy passes to cut off Hoosiers coming off high-slide screens. Once Michigan State turned off the water at the IU piers, the lights went out for the Bloomington team.