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EAST LANSING — Michigan State basketball needed its seniors on Wednesday night. More than at any point in a turbulent season.
Kissing the floor would have to wait until later.
They provided a gritty second half in a game where everything was hard to come by. But it was a sophomore who delivered the biggest moments on senior night in a must-win game for the Spartans.
Tre Holloman chased down a loose-ball rebound and got fouled with 9.4 seconds left, hitting both free throws as MSU escaped with a 53-49 victory over Northwestern at Breslin Center.
The Izzone screamed after every make as loud as they have all season. And as the Spartans (18-12, 10-9 Big Ten) managed to bat away the ball after a last-ditch Wildcats attempt in the waning second, Breslin erupted in a cathartic caterwaul as the clock ran out — everyone on the court and in the stands understanding the importance of the victory toward continuing Tom Izzo’s streak of 25 straight NCAA tournament appearances and sending the seniors out with a major moment in their final home game.
“We can win ugly, which I won a lot of games back in championship years that were ugly,” Izzo said, long after the senior night celebration that followed the final horn. “I’d just like to (have won) a little prettier tonight. But a win is a win – we got a win, and we move on.”
Tyson Walker scored 12 of his game-high 19 points in the second half, including a driving layup with inside two minutes to play that proved to be the winning points. Despite making just 8 of 21 shots, the senior guard reached 2,000 points for his career between MSU and his first two years at Northeastern.
“Winning a game and only scoring 53, that’s big,” Walker said. “We played a lot of defense. We did some some good things. We haven’t really put a full game together, offensively and defensively, for the whole time. So when we get that going, it’s a totally different game.”
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Malik Hall, like Walker in their final games at Breslin, had nine points and 11 rebounds in the second half to finish with 15 points and a career-best 17 rebounds. He and senior point guard A.J. Hoggard sparked the Spartans after a lackluster start by scoring their first nine points of the second half.
But Holloman came off the bench and attacked all game on offense and defense, finishing with 12 points. He hit a pair of 3-pointers in the first half and another bucket as part of that comeback run at the start of the final period.
MSU closes out the regular-season Sunday at Indiana (4:30 p.m./CBS).
Fight to the finish
In the final minute, it took every ounce of resolve to prevent Northwestern’s Boo Buie from doing further damage over his long career as a Spartan-slayer.
After Hoggard and sophomore Jaxon Kohler forced Buie into a double-dribble turnover, Walker drove through the trees and scored a layup in traffic to reach 2,000 for his career. Hall then delivered a tip-out to Walker after a missed floater by Buie, thanks to a defensive seal by Kohler. Walker took advantage again with another driving bucket, pushing the lead to 51-46 with 1:42 to play. Breslin Center reached a deafening crescendo.
But Northwestern’s Ryan Langborg, questionable entering the game, came off a screen and drilled a 3-pointer with 57.8 seconds remaining to cut MSU’s lead to two. Walker nearly lost the ball at the other end near the free-throw line, regathered it, then drove to his left. His layup attempt smacked too hard off the backboard, and the Wildcats rebounded and called timeout with 16.6 ticks left.
Langborg launched another 3-pointer with about 11 seconds left, but he missed it and Holloman and Northwestern’s Brooks Barnhizer raced for the long rebound. They collided, with MSU’s 6-foot-2, 180-pound guard and former football player absorbing a big shot from the 6-6, 215-pound Barnhizer (though Luke Hunger was credited for the foul in the stat sheet), then making the free throws at the other end to seal as important and hard-fought win for the Spartans in a must-needed situation to end a three-game losing streak and a two-game home skid.
Buie scored 15 points on 6-for-13 shooting for Northwestern (20-10, 11-8), while Nick Martinelli added 12 points and Barnhizer finished with 11 points and 12 rebounds. The Wildcats played without 7-footer Matthew Nicholson (foot).
The Spartans survived despite shooting just 31.7% from the field and going 2-for-17 from 3-point range. They outrebounded Northwestern, 46-35, and outscored the Wildcats in the paint, 26-14.
“When you don’t make shots like that, it’s hard to keep playing defense,” Izzo said. “So if there’s another thing I’ve learned, it’s that we can keep playing defense.”
Offensive first half
With the stakes as high as they have been all winter, Izzo opted to keep the same starting group he has used for most of the winter on senior night — Hoggard, Walker, junior Jaden Akins, Hall and senior Mady Sissoko.
They responded with one of the worst halves of the season offensively.
Layups, floaters and dunk attempts in close. Midrange and 3-point shots. Didn’t matter where, but the Spartans could not generate anything in a rough-and-tumble first 20 minutes. MSU shot just 21.9% from the field, its worst percentage of the season in a half by going just 7-for-32 from the field and 2-for-9 from 3-point range.
Walker went just 3 of 11, two layups and a jumper. Hoggard and Akins combined to miss all eight of their shots. Hall was 2-for-6.
Northwestern stretched its lead to 17-9 on Buie’s second 3-pointer with 8:32 to go in the half. The Wildcats made seven of their first 16 shots before MSU’s defense began to clamp down, limiting them to 3-of-11 shooting over the final eight minutes.
Holloman delivered back-to-back 3-pointers as part of a 10-3 run, with Buie’s third triple sandwiched between, to get the Spartans back within a point with 3:19 to go before half. But Northwestern scored five of the final six points, with Logan Barnhizer draining a tough falling-away 3-pointer in the final 20 seconds to send MSU into halftime trailing, 25-20, and battling sputtering emotions.
The Spartans’ 20 points were their second fewest in a half this season, trailing only the 17 scored in the second half of a win at Maryland on Jan. 21.
A second chance
The second half was a senior night-and-day difference.
Whatever was said in MSU’s locker room at halftime, it awakened Hall and Hoggard. And it helped the Spartans channel the desperation level needed with their NCAA tournament hopes starting to slip toward the wrong side of the bubble.
Hoggard attacked immediately off the dribble to open the second half. Then Hall went to work on the right block with three straight buckets. Those were part of an 11-2 run out of the gate that gave MSU its first lead of the game, 31-27, on another Holloman jumper with inside 15 minutes to play.
Northwestern wouldn’t go away.
Barnhizer drilled another 3-pointer to kickstart a 9-2 Wildcat answer to reclaim the lead on a Buie floater with 10:57 left. They would extend it to 45-42 lead on a three-point play by Barnhizer through a Hall foul, a Buie driving layup around Walker and a pair of Nick Martinelli free throws after another Hall foul.
MSU tied it up again at the free-throw line, with Walker’s pair making it 45-45 with 5:38 to play.
All of the pressure on the Spartans ratcheted up, along with their intensity. Their crowd screamed and hollered to provide energy, everyone knowing what was on the line. The collective exhale at the final horn showed just how much it meant.
Contact Chris Solari:csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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