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EAST LANSING – Michigan State basketball quickly turned a dog fight into a track meet.
Already flexing their defense in a battle with Maryland, the Spartans found themselves trailing by one point with just over seven minutes left. That’s when Malik Hall took control and MSU took control en route to a 63-54 victory on Saturday.
Hall scored eight straight points after the Terrapins took the lead. His 3-pointer in that stretch sparked the Spartans’ 12-0 run that included a three-point play that was quickly followed by a steal and breakaway layup by AJ Hoggard.
That 2 minute, 16 second period turned the Breslin Center from a place of concern to a cauldron of noise. MSU closed the game with a 22-12 burst after Maryland’s only lead of the game.
“This is helping us develop the type of experience we need moving forward,” said Hall, who scored 14 of his 19 points and five of his seven rebounds after halftime. “I mean, shoot, the (NCAA Tournament) is really good. You’re going to run into teams that just won’t give up, and they’re going to be tough games throughout the game. So just being able to fight your way from start to finish, that’s what you need as a Big Ten team. And I think we’re developing that more as we go through this Big Ten season. It’s something we definitely need for sure.
Tyson Walker also scored 19 points, while Hoggard had six points, eight assists and five rebounds.
After being outrebounded in the first meeting against the Terps, the Spartans finished with a 36-30 advantage on the glass on Saturday and had a 30-18 scoring advantage in the paint. MSU turned 12 offensive rebounds into 11 second-chance points.
“I don’t care if you’re a 97-year-old coach, player or mother; you couldn’t get through that game without being tired,” MSU coach Tom Izzo said. “It was a fight…Winning a game that way is not for the faint of heart. But it was probably good for my program moving forward in what I think we need to do.”
The Spartans (14-8, 6-5 Big Ten) travel to Minnesota on Tuesday. Kick-off at Williams Arena is at 9 pm and the game will not be broadcast and will only be broadcast on Peacock. The Gophers (14-7, 5-5) won overtime Saturday at home against Northwestern, 75-66.
“We have to bring our own energy to play against a team that is playing very well, especially at home,” Walker said.
MSU’s defense stifled Maryland, which shot just 30.9% for the game and was 7 of 30 from 3-point range. Jahmir Young scored 19 of his 31 points in the second half, but was only 9 of 22.
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Donta Scott added 13 points but was just 5-of-13, grabbing a game-high 10 rebounds. Scott and Young combined for 7 of 24 shooting from behind the arc, and MSU put forward Julian Reese (two points, two rebounds) in foul trouble all game for the Terrapins (13-9, 5-6).
Tyson Walker looks like Tyson Walker
Even though Izzo said Thursday that his senior guard was battling a slight groin strain, Walker went on the offensive in the first half. He scored his first of two 3-pointers in the first half just over two and a half minutes into the game, part of his 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting.
After being outrebounded by 15 in their 61-59 road win at Maryland on Jan. 21, the Spartans attacked the glass early and often and held an 18-17 halftime lead. MSU had seven second-chance points on five offensive rebounds, including a pair from Carson Cooper on consecutive possessions that led to assists for the sophomore on Walker: first hitting him for a cutting layup and then kicking in his own miss. for another Walker 3. That put MSU up, 14-5, and forced Maryland coach Kevin Willard to burn a timeout with 13:46 left in the half.
The Spartans had a chance to extend it, but committed turnovers on three straight plays. Hoggard took a 5-second call on an inbound pass from the baseline, then sent a pass intended for Malik Hall who rose over his forward’s head for a turnover. After a Scott three-pointer, Hall was tied up and turned around again. MSU had seven giveaways in the first half.
“That really bothered me,” Izzo said of the lapses during that stretch.
The Terps again got behind Young, who also scored 12 points in the first half but on just 4 of 13 shooting. He and Scott hit 3-pointers late in the half to pull within two with 50 seconds left before intermission. Scott scored 11 before halftime, including three 3-pointers.
But Hoggard ran into traffic and got a runner out to send MSU into halftime with a 31-27 lead.
The Spartans’ defense held Maryland to just 5 of 17 from 3-point range and 31.3% overall, forcing six Terps turnovers. The Spartans connected on 48.1% of their shots in the first half, but were just 2-of-5 from deep as they outscored Maryland in the paint, 18-8.
Survive the cold wave
Reese got into foul trouble in the first half, missing the final 7:04 of the half after getting his third. It took 8 seconds after the break for the 6-9 junior to go to the bench again with his fourth, an unintentional elbow to the face of Jaden Akins off a screen.
It also set the tone for the rock fight to come, with the two teams making just 4 of 23 shots and missing all 11 of their 3-point attempts in the first 9 minutes after halftime.
Both teams’ defenses began to clamp down and take away driving lanes and clean looks from the outside. Every time the Spartans looked ready to take flight, they committed an egregious turnover: two unusually bad passes from Tre Holloman sailed into the crowd, another from Hoggard missed Hall badly. But Maryland couldn’t capitalize either, even as Young began to assert himself on offense.
“I said it was a game I wouldn’t want to referee. I wouldn’t want to have been on TV… And in all honesty, I didn’t want to be me for a while,” Izzo joked. “I sat there and said, ‘This sucks.’ But we bounced back. We scored a lot more points.”
The shots Akins hit in a career performance Tuesday against Michigan weren’t falling, but his 3-pointer with 9:05 gave MSU a six-point lead. But Young, who scored 11 of the Terps’ first 15 points after halftime, responded with a 3-pointer. Then, after a layup from Scott, Young circled Sissoko to give Maryland its only lead of the game, 42-41, with 7:15 left.
Sissoko quickly atoned for it, giving the Spartans the lead with an alley-oop dunk off a Hoggard lob. That sparked the comeback, with Hall scoring 12 points in the final 6:12. Maryland missed six of its last eight shots.
MSU has won five of its last six games, pulling away after halftime for four of them and surviving an early second-half collapse in the first win over Maryland.
“I don’t think we plan on making it a close game and then running away. I think it just happens,” Walker said. “We know we have to make winning plays. And naturally, that leads to us making stops and winning.”
Contact Chris Solari:csolari@freepress.com. FOLLOW IT @chrissolari.
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