Michigan State has played with fire over the past few games and they finally got burned. The Spartans fell to the bottom-dwelling Wildcats of Northwestern 64-62 at the Breslin Center on Saturday afternoon.
Another first half that saw the Spartans turn the ball over 12 times and put Michigan State in a 5-point hole going to the break.
The second half was a back and forth battle until the Wildcats pulled away with a little over 2 minutes left in the game. In a 57-56 game, Northwestern’s Ryan Young went on a 5-0 run to extend the game to 62-56. It took this run for coach Tom Izzo to take a nontraditional center in Joey Hauser off of the floor for a traditional center in Julius Marble. Ryan Young had a field day in the paint when Izzo put both Bingham and Marble on the bench, scoring 18 points, leading Northwestern.
Down 64-62 with 10 seconds left in the game, Michigan State had a chance to tie or take the lead. A play drawn up out of a time-out gave Malik Hall a wide-open look at the three to take the lead that he missed off the front rim. After a traveling violation, MSU had an out-of-bounds play with 1 second left. Marcus Bingham was fouled on the play giving him a chance to tie the game at the line. Bingham missed the front end of the 1-and-1 and the Spartans dropped the game.
Julius Marble was the lone bright spot of the day, leading Michigan State in scoring with 18 points.
If Michigan State wants to be in contention for a Big Ten title come March, it needs to sure up its turnover problem, and it absolutely cannot drop another game like this at home.
The Spartans will take court again on Friday on the road against the Wisconsin Badgers.
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