EAST LANSING – Everything coach Tom Izzo had preached for the entirety of his Michigan State basketball career finally clicked again Saturday.
A swarming defensive effort. Aggressive attacking of the boards despite a significant size disadvantage. Opening up a fastbreak which had dried up in recent weeks.
Max Christie and Gabe Brown hitting shots. The Spartans flexing their bench depth. And the components of a team that spent much of the previous two months in and out of the top 10 starting to look like their old selves once again.
Just in time to pull off a top-10 upset.
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Tyson Walker’s step-back 3-pointer with 1.4 seconds left sent Breslin Center into hysterics and proved to be the game-winning shot as No. 24 MSU continued its consistently inconsistent season with perhaps its best performance yet, riding a revamped starting lineup and disrupting the Boilermakers all afternoon for a 68-65 upset of No. 7 Purdue.
The Spartans led by 11 with 9:33 to play on Christie’s layup as part of an 11-2 run. But Purdue chipped away by going to Zach Edey and Trevion Williams on the block as MSU, part of their 48-28 scoring advantage in the post.
But A.J. Hoggard finished a layup through contact with 1:44 left. After Ivey scored a layup with 1:17 to go and then got fouled by Christie, he went to the line for a 1-and-1 with a chance to take the lead. But the Purdue star missed the second free throw, and Edey fouled Julius Marble on the rebound attempt. The MSU junior hit both ends of his free throws to put MSU up, 65-63, with 51.2 seconds remaining.
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Williams tied it with a layup with 31.2 seconds left, on which Hoggard appeared to hurt his left leg and needed to come out of the game. Izzo called timeout with 16.1 seconds to play and 15 on the shot clock, setting up Walker’s shot that swirled around the rim before falling as the sellout crowd erupted.
Purdue had two final chances, but the Boilermakers turned the ball over twice.
The win couldn’t have come at a bigger time for the Spartans (19-9, 10-7 Big Ten). It prevented a fourth straight loss after MSU dropped five of its previous six games. And it gives Izzo’s team another marquee win to help solidify its NCAA tournament position going into March and two road games at Michigan on Tuesday (6:30 p.m., FS1) and at No. 19 Ohio State on Thursday.
It started on defense, where MSU forced Purdue into 17 turnovers that turned into 16 points. Though Edey, the Boilermakers’ 7-foot-4 behemoth, dominated the Spartans inside, scoring 25 points on 10-for-15 shooting, Christie and Hoggard pestered Ivey all afternoon defensively. The Purdue guard finished with 11 points on 5-for-9 shooting but also committed five turnovers; his team went just 1-for-9 from 3-point range. Williams added 11 points for the Boilermakers (24-5, 13-5).
Hoggard and Walker had MSU out and running in transition for the first time since scoring 28 fastbreak points against Michigan on Jan. 29. The Spartans finished with a 19-2 edge on the break after scoring just 42 transition points in their past seven games combined.
Christie and Brown shook off their shooting struggles to combine for 24 points on 9-for-19 shooting as MSU made nine 3-pointers. Marble, making his first start since late December, finished with 12 points on 5-for-5 shooting. Hoggard had 11 points, six assists and three rebounds, while Walker had eight points and four assists.
Izzo’s 662nd win at Michigan State tied Indiana legend Bobby Knight for the most by a coach at a single Big Ten school.
Izzo pledged to make changes after Tuesday’s blowout loss at Iowa, and he shuffled his post players in hope of getting off to a better start Saturday. Marble got his second start of the season and Hall started for the first time since the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in late November, with Bingham and Hauser coming off the bench.
It worked.
The Spartans jumped out quickly with the game’s first five points; Brown and Christie shook their shooting slumps with a 3-pointer from the senior and the freshman scoring inside.
The Boilermakers fed Edey early and often against Marble in the paint, but Brown continued MSU’s outside barrage with his second 3-pointer to spark an 11-4 run that included a deep jumper from Hauser, followed by 3s from Walker and Hoggard.
The dual point guard lineup of Walker and Hoggard pestered Ivey and Eric Hunter on Purdue’s perimeter. Hoggard delivered a perfect look-away alley-oop to Brown for a dunk and Mady Sissoko added some energy on the boards and floorboards diving for a loose ball. The sophomore forward’s free throw after an offensive rebound gave the Spartans their biggest lead of the half at 28-21 with 5:24 left before half.
MSU built it back to seven on a Hoggard steal and layup, a Hauser 3-pointer that was the Spartans’ sixth of the first half and Marble’s layup off a bounce pass from Hoggard with 2:13 left.
But the Boilermakers closed the half with the final five points, the first two coming on an Edey alley-oop. Hoggard missed the front end of a 1-and-1 situation, then Walker fouled Hunter shooting a 3-pointer with 5.3 seconds before the horn. Purdue’s point guard hit all three free throws to seize some momentum and slice MSU’s lead to 35-32 at half.
Brown and Christie combined for 15 points on 6-for-12 shooting, and Hoggard had five points, five assists and three rebounds at the break for MSU. The Spartans shot 50% overall and 60% from deep, with their nine fastbreak points and 11 from the bench a factor.
However, the Boilermakers shot 45.8% and turned five offensive rebounds into nine second-chance points thanks to Edey’s 15 on 6-for-8 shooting. They also got to the free-throw line often and went 10-for-13, while MSU was just 1-for-3. Ivey added eight points but committed three of Purdue’s seven turnovers.
Edey made it a 7-0 run with the first bucket after halftime, another post-up pin of Marble on the block. But the Spartans continued to run, with Brown getting fouled on a breakaway dunk attempt and Bingham sparking another transition with a strip-steal on Ivey and a long pass on a runout to Hoggard for a layup to make it 39-35 and force Purdue coach Matt Painter to burn a timeout less than 3 minutes into the second half.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism