Michigan State basketball uses late run to pull away from High Point, 81-68
EAST LANSING — COVID-19 continues to play havoc on the college basketball season and Michigan State is the latest team hit.
But the short-handed Spartans — without a pair of starters — rode the hot second-half 3-point shooting of Gabe Brown to survive a stiff test from High Point, 81-68, Wednesday afternoon at Breslin Center.
“I guess in this COVID era sometimes it’s good to learn how to win short-handedly and other guys are going to have to rise up,” MSU coach Tom Izzo said. “And it’s good to see what other guys will rise up, but as you can tell I’m totally disappointed with our effort. It’s two games in a row where our defense has not been good.”
Brown, a 6-foot-8 senior, finished with a career-high 24 points (6-for-13 from 3-point range) and Joey Hauser contributed 17 points and 11 rebounds as the No. 10 Spartans (11-2) outscored the Panthers (6-7) over the final nine minutes, 25-12.
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Brown started 2-for-10 from the field, but picked it up and made 6 of 13 3-pointers to go along with seven rebounds.
“Even though when I’m missing, I know I have my teammates and my coaches behind me,” Brown said. “They told me to keep shooting and that’s what I did and it turned out good.”
Malik Hall’s dunk with 3:54 left gave MSU a 74-63 advantage and helped put an exclamation point on the victory. Hall added 13 points, Julius Marble scored 10 and A.J. Hoggard came off the bench to score 10 points and dish eight assists.
MSU was missing four players who tested positive for COVID-19 including Big Ten Freshman of the Week Max Christie and leading rebounder Marcus Bingham. In their place, freshman Jaden Aikens and Marble, a junior, started.
“When I came back (from the holiday break), I was worried about COVID, worried about players, worried about this, worried about that ... and so we didn’t practice as well since December 11th because we gave them time off for finals,” Izzo said. “Some guys had some tough finals and then after finals we go to Oakland (Dec. 21 in Detroit) and we gave them another four or five days off. Then we had some guys with COVID and I was leery of pushing them.”
All four players, including Pierre Brooks and Steven Izzo, reportedly are expected back Thursday and should be available for Sunday’s Big Ten encounter at Northwestern, but that was no concern for High Point, which put up quite a battle under coach Tubby Smith.
Izzo trecognized his friend Smith, who has had coaching stops at Tulsa, Minnesota, Kentucky (1998 national title), Georgia and Texas Tech and won 637 games.
“I love Tubby Smith because he’s done it the right way everywhere he’s coached,” Izzo said. “He’s a damn good coach, a damn good person and he has my respect and admiration.”
The Spartans, who trailed 35-34 at the half, got a boost coming out for the second half from Hauser, who nailed a pair of 3s to put MSU up 42-37 following the first media timeout with 15:37 to go.
For the game, the 6-9 senior was an efficient 5 of 8 from the floor and made all four free throws to go along with three assists and no turnovers in what Izzo called his best outing as a Spartan.
“I knew I had to step up, we were playing limited guys,” Hauser said, “so I figured I was going to play, got a few more minutes than I was used to, but it didn’t really change anything. I just played my game, made a few more shots ... so that was about it.”
High Point wouldn’t go away as Zack Austin (15 points) nailed a 3-pointer from the right wing to make it 50-49 with 12 minutes to play.
After Bryson Childress sank his fourth 3-pointer to tie the game at 56 with 8:56 to go, Brown hit back-to-back 3s to equal the Spartans' biggest lead of the night, 65-58, with 7:12 left, as MSU scored on five straight possessions and closed it out, much to the delight of the Breslin holiday crown.
“I’d would say we really just made a few more shots,” Hauser said. “Defensively we weren’t great the whole game. The second half they got a lot of offensive rebounds, some loose balls. So, once we started making shots it gave us a lift a little bit.”
The Spartans started ice cold missing their first eight shots before Hauser broke the scoring drought with a driving baseline layup with 15:10 to play, while the Panthers went 1-for-9.
After the second media timeout with 11:33 to go, the Spartans led 11-7.Starting point guard Tyson Walker hobbled off the court, but re-entered a few minutes later.
High Point went on a 12-5 run as Jaden House made a driving layup with 4:03 left in the half to pull the Panthers within 29-27, and took the lead at intermission, 35-34, on a 3-pointer by the team’s leading scorer John-Michael Wright.
Even though the Spartans made only 12 of 34 first-half shots, it was the lack of defense which concerned Izzo.
“We looked a step slow in the first half like we were in quicksand,” he said. “I’m disappointed we let our offense be our defense. And that team (High Point) with two minutes left in the game was shooting 58% from 3. We forgot where we came from and lost our edge a little bit. And if there’s somebody to blame, better blame me.”
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball pulls away from High Point, 81-68
