These games between Michigan State basketball and Oakland always have a certain look.
Scrappy. Physical. Closer than you’d expect.
And yet they always end the same way: With Tom Izzo shaking Greg Kampe’s hand in consolation.
This time, it took an 11-point outburst from Jaden Akins and Jaxon Kohler midway through the second half to give the 19th-ranked Spartans some breathing room en route to a 77-58 victory over the Golden Grizzlies on Tuesday night at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.
“We just had to get going,” Akins said. “I think we were just a little bit too lackadaisical to start the game. I feel like we started to bring more energy.”
MSU (9-2) improved to 23-0 all-time against Oakland (3-6), all of them with Izzo and Kampe as the teams’ head coaches.
“I thought in the second half, we did a better job of getting the ball inside, having a little more patience and maybe wore them down a little bit,” Izzo said. “But I was impressed by how they played against us.”
Xavier Booker scored a career-high 18 points, 11 of them in the second half, and grabbed four of his six rebounds on the offensive glass. Akins had 16 points, while Kohler posted a double-double (14 points and 10 rebounds) and added three of the Spartans’ 11 blocked shots. Szymon Zapala stuffed the stat sheet with six blocks, eight rebounds, five points and three assists as the Spartans outrebounded Oakland, 51-31, and turned 20 offensive boards into 25 second-chance points.
MSU returns to East Lansing and hosts Florida Atlantic at 2 p.m. Saturday at Breslin Center (FS1).
DQ Cole scored 15 of his 17 points in the first half, and Malco Christie had 15 points as Oakland made 11 of 31 3-pointers. The Golden Grizzlies, who travel to Cleveland State for a 7 p.m. tip Thursday, played without without second-leading scorer Buru Naivalurua, who Kampe said was a late scratch with a back injury sustained during warmups.
“We wore out,” Kampe said. “From my standpoint, I believe it’s because we were down a player. It’s like the Lions, man, you gotta find a way to win. You gotta find a way to win, and we didn’t. They’re (19th) in the country and we’re not. And so, eventually, the talent, it just took over.”
DQ Cole gives Oakland reasons to be merry
The first half went about as poorly for the Spartans as possible.
MSU started hot, opening up a 10-5 lead early with Kohler attacking the boards and Akins draining a pair of 3s. But Oakland pecked away and pestered the Spartans with their amorphous zone defense.
Things got sloppy, with the Grizzlies forcing MSU into seven turnovers in the first half and keeping plays alive with nine Oakland offensive rebounds. But the Spartans got four free throws from Jeremy Fears Jr. and Kohler to build a 16-10 lead at the midpoint of the first half.
That’s when Cole heated up.
The junior guard from Pontiac hit back-to-back 3-pointers to give Oakland its first lead with 8:10 left, then hit two more after MSU started to nudge back in front. He and Booker traded 3s before the final media timeout of the first half, but Malcolm Christie buried the Grizzlies’ sixth of the half to knot the score at 28-all with 2:12 before the break.
“We play hard,” Cole said. “We play through whatever is going on out there. The good, the bad, the ugly — we keep playing.”
MSU made five of its first 10 shots, then went into a 1-for-9 funk over the next seven minutes.
Booker split a pair of free throws with 12.1 seconds left to send the Spartans into halftime with a 31-30 lead. The sophomore had seven points at intermission, while Kohler had eight and six rebounds. MSU had a 25-18 rebounding edge despite giving up half of those on offensive boards for Oakland and also blocked seven shots, three from Zapala
Before the break, Cole was 5-for-9 on 3s, with the Golden Grizzles draining six of 17 from behind the arc. They also held the Spartans to 4-for-12 on 3s.
Spartans open a box of cheer after halftime
Whatever fire and brimstone Izzo delivered in the locker room, MSU responded when the second half started.
The Spartans ripped off a 10-1 run over the first four-plus minutes, stifling Oakland’s momentum with layups from Tre Holloman and Kohler and pushing it to a 10-point lead on Jase Richardson’s 3-pointer from the left corner that ignited the decidedly pro-green crowd of 12,011.
Izzo also pointed to the defensive job Fears did after asking in the locker room to guard Cole in the second half. The redshirt freshman point guard limited Cole to 1-for-7 shooting in the final half, missing all three of his 3-point attempts and scoring just two points.
But the Grizzlies wouldn’t go away, with Christie draining two more 3s and a layup and free throw from Jaylen Jones cutting it to 43-40 with 13:13 remaining to momentarily keep their upset hopes afloat.
Akins missed a 3-pointer, but sophomore Coen Carr skywalked through traffic to grab the offensive board and give it right back to the senior. Akins attacked from the wing and finished through traffic with a layup off the window. Then, 30 seconds later, Akins was fouled on a 3-point try and made two free throws to push it back to a seven-point cushion with 11:41 left.
After MSU’s defense forced a turnover at the other end, Akins again drove through the lane and got fouled and hit another free throw and missed the second. But Kohler cleaned it up with a tip-in then got another post-up layup. Akins’ dipsy-doo, up-and-under layup in transition made it a 54-42 lead. The Spartans’ 11-2 run forced Kampe to call timeout with 9:07 to play, and Oakland could not recapture its early magic.
“That was one of the keys, to play physical and just keep fighting,” said Kohler, who went 6-for-11 from the field and grabbed three offensive boards. “(Halftime) was just honestly kind of a check. Like, ‘Hey, this game means a lot to us —and it’s still a game.’ We had to get back into rhythm, we had to get in the same energy, and we had to fix up on some mistakes that we had. And that’s what we did.”
Booker had a pair of free throws, a tip-in, a 3-pointer off a kickout pass from Zapala and a dunk with 5:20 to play as part of MSU’s final 15-6 knockout punch that pushed the lead to 18 with 4:29 to play.
To put the cherry on it, Nick Sanders — son of Lions great Barry — gave the Spartans their final points with a long 2-pointer with 19.1 seconds remaining, to a load roar from the remaining crowd.
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
Subscribe to the “Spartan Speak” podcast for new episodes weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts. And catch all of our podcasts and daily voice briefing at freep.com/podcasts.
