In a season with little left for Michigan basketball to accomplish, there was one thing remaining to play for.
Stealing its rival’s soul. On Saturday night, in front of a crowd that chanted “Go Green, Go White” every bit as frequently as it did “Go Blue,” the last-place Wolverines, who were without senior forward Terrance Williams II, gave it everything they had.
They withstood a nine-point deficit early and even punched back after a 14-3 MSU flurry to tie the game with just more than eight minutes to play. But ultimately they couldn’t overcome 13 second-half turnovers, including six in the final seven minutes during a closing 10-0 MSU run, to assist the Spartans, who held on for the 73-63 win.
“I mean you go back and you joke about it, you lose a game like this and look back at 22 turnovers, it’s gonna be a horror film,” Michigan coach Juwan Howard said. “When you have 22 turnovers, teams are just too good in our league. Give Michigan State credit, defensively they’re good, but there were a lot of gifts we gifted them.
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It’s Juwan Howard’s first loss against Tom Izzo at Crisler Center in five games, and the Wolverines have now lost 13 of their past 15 games.
Tarris Reed Jr. led the Wolverines with 15 points on 6-for-10 shooting and 11 rebounds — his third career double-double — while Dug McDaniel added 13 points, three rebounds and three assists in his first game of the season against MSU.
Another second-half slide
Michigan’s lead had grown to a game-high six points, 53-47 after a Jaelin Llewellyn three-point play with 13:13 remaining, when the Spartans responded with their first game-changing spurt.
Izzo’s team got points from five different players in its surge — Tyson Walker, Carson Cooper, Tre Hollomon, Malik Hall and Jaden Akins — to take a five-point lead, 61-56, before U-M responded with five straight of its own to knot the game at 61.
Cooper and Will Tschetter traded putbacks to tie the game at 63, but then U-M’s offense went flat.
Michigan did not score for the final seven minutes and turned it over six times in that span to finish with a season-worst 22 giveaways.
“Whether we try to make the home run play and not go for the simple play, or there were situations where we didn’t read the defense and try to make a move,” Howard said. “Then it’s a travel, or not allow the defender to clear out and try to go into an offensive move that led to a turnover.
“Just poor decisions we had in situations that were costly.”
Llewellyn scored 12 points, Olivier Nkamhoua scored 11 and Nimari Burnett finished with 10. Walker led MSU with 19 while Hall added 18.
Michigan dooms itself with turnovers
Michigan trailed by as much as nine in the first half, and it felt as though the Wolverines had done well to be down just two at the break considering they were outscored by lopsided margins in bench points (17-0), points in the paint (22-8) and on the fast break (13-0).
U-M has frequently wilted out of the locker room this season, but on Saturday night, it came out with the first punch, as it blitzed MSU with an 11-4 run and took a 48-43 lead when McDaniel found Nkamhoua in transition for a layup.
Shooting wasn’t a problem for the Wolverines early as they made eight of their first 11 shots of the half. However, they weren’t getting enough shots off. As MSU struggled to find its footing, U-M didn’t extend the lead as it turned the ball over five times in a span of 2:57 in the middle of the half, allowing the Spartans a chance to find their rhythm.
“I know the energy and excitement was there from the start,” Reed said. “Especially for me, I was ready to go, I was hot. But yeah, I just felt like we had to slow down, and those turnovers tuned into points”
Eventually, MSU settled in, when Walker made MSU’s first 3-pointer — the Spartans had missed their first eight attempts — and then a pair of free throws to get the momentum going. After a Reed three-point play off a dunk restored a four-point lead, the Spartans had their best run of the half.
Walker found Cooper on a lob at the rim, Hollomon hit a scooping layup, A.J. Hoggard found a streaking Hall for a transition dunk and Akins drilled a 3-pointer from the left wing to cap a 9-0 run and put MSU up 61-56.
Again, U-M didn’t go quietly. Reed hit a pair of free throws and Burnett buried a 3-pointer from the wing to tie the game at 61 with just more than eight minutes to play.
“We were pumped up as any game,” Burnett said. “We don’t like to see green, they don’t like to see maize and blue. We get up for these games, you love the energy in the arena.
“But sometimes in these big time games, it’s good to be poised, calmed down just a little bit and a balance of both hyped-up and calm at the same time so you can see things clearly.”
Michigan’s fans didn’t have anything else to cheer about the rest of the way.
MSU led 65-63 later in the half, when Akins missed the front end of a one-and-one, only for Hall to get the offensive rebound, get fouled on the putback attempt, and make both of his tries to put MSU up four.
From there, Hall added a baseline drive and slam, and Hoggard threw an outlet pass to Walker, who found Akins for a layup to put MSU up 71-63 with 3:38 to play, before a pair of Walker free throws finished the scoring.
Won’t go down quietly
Neither team opened the game with any rivalry game jitters, trading shots in the opening stages of the contest.
Michigan made its first four attempts and six of its first eight, highlighted by a pair of Llewellyn plays — a three-point play off a layup and a 3-pointer from the corner — for six early points.
However Michigan made its share of mistakes, too, including three live ball turnovers which led to four MSU points on fast-break layups by Walker.
After Burnett made a tough baseline jumper, Hall answered with an equally tough turnaround over Nkamhoua for the Spartans and, Howard called timeout with U-M leading 14-12, just over five minutes in.
On the other side of the break, the success slowed down, as Michigan missed five consecutive baskets and Michigan State missed four in a row, leading to nearly three minutes of gametime without a point until a tough left-handed layup from Hall tied it with 10:51 in the half.
The sides traded buckets, before another U-M turnover — an entry pass from Tray Jackson swiped down low — led to a Coen Carr fastbreak and what would have been a thunderous dunk if Tschetter hadn’t fouled him. But Tschetter was whistled for a flagrant-1, giving the Spartans a boost. MSU used it to put together a 6-0 run, paired with a 1-for-7 U-M stretch from the floor.
Later in the half, after a Nkamhoua layup cut the lead to two, MSU made a push. Jaxon Kohler a three-point play at the rim after three offensive rebounds on the possession, Hall made a midrange jumper from the middle of U-M’s 2-3 zone and then Carr threw down a transition dunk to give MSU a nine-point lead, 31-22.
U-M wasn’t done, however. Shortly after chants of ‘Do your homework’ — directed at McDaniel, who has been suspended for road games for academic reasons — erupted from MSU fans, U-M’s sophomore guard went to work.
He scored seven straight points, including a deep 3-pointer, to pull U-M back within two. After a pair of Walker free throws and a halfcourt lob from Walker to a leaping Carr gave MSU a six-point lead, Michigan quickly ripped off an 8-0 run of its own.
Burnett buried a 3-pointer from the left wing, Nkamhoua finished a tough turnaround near the block before Nkamhoua passed out of a double-team to Llewelllyn, who knocked down a long ball to give Michigan a lead, 37-35.
The Wolverines couldn’t hold onto it, however, as Hollomon hit a pair of free throws to tie the game with 20 seconds left. Then, with 0.4 seconds remaining, MSU’s Davis Smith, a former walk-on and the son of MSU legend Steve Smith, subbed in for Hollomon because of foul trouble, was fouled by McDaniel on a loose ball. After a review, Smith knocked down both attempts to give MSU a two-point lead at the break.
