EAST LANSING — The easy part is done, even if it wasn’t exactly a smooth ride.
An odd Monday afternoon start led to sloppy play at times, but No. 15 Michigan State basketball finished its nonconference slate with an 80-62 victory over Western Michigan.
“That crowd was so ready to explode, it was so good. And we gave ’em nothing to explode (about),” MSU coach Tom Izzo said. “I almost got a technical just to get the crowd going. I felt bad for them. I should’ve just got one and said, ‘Hey, you know this is on me, fans, you guys were awesome.’
“We weren’t very good. And I told my team that was about four minutes left to go in a huddle. I said, ‘You let down 15,000 people today,’ because they were ready to explode.”
Despite committing 17 turnovers that led to 14 Broncos points, it was another balanced performance for the Spartans (11-2). Jaden Akins scored 18 points, Carson Cooper had a career-high 13 points with six rebounds, and Szymon Zapala added eight points and nine boards.
“We just didn’t really give them anything to cheer until maybe a little bit at the end of the game,” Akins said. “We didn’t play with the energy that we needed to play with. I take responsibility on that as a captain on the team. It just wasn’t there today.”
Jase Richardson, Tre Holloman and Coen Carr each scored nine as MSU shot 50% overall and finished with a 41-18 scoring edge off the bench.
The Spartans return to Big Ten play Friday night at Ohio State. Tipoff is 8 p.m. at Schottenstein Center in Columbus, Ohio (Fox). That will be a quick turnaround to fix the things Izzo wants corrected.
“I mean, it’s a good thing and a bad thing, right, because it could go either way,” Cooper said. “You don’t play great in a game and you’re kind of little sloppy, then coach kind of gets a little down in his head that we weren’t totally locked in. But also, it could be that aspect, too, where we kind of got all the bad play out of our system and we’re able to kind of just clear out all the bad negativity.
“Maybe coming from break, everything was a little sloppy. Get that out of the way, and then just get on to the next one.”
Chansey Willis Jr. had 12 points and Max Burton scored 10 for WMU (3-9), which is coached by longtime Tom Izzo assistant coach Dwayne Stephens, who played for Jud Heathcote from 1989-93 with Izzo as an assistant. It was the first return to Breslin Center for Stephens since taking over the Broncos before the 2022-23 season.
Mentor faces the mentee
Izzo talked all week about how difficult it would be to face a protégé, particularly having spent much of the past 30 years alongside Stephens — a player Izzo helped recruit and who was part of Izzo’s coaching staff for 19 years before taking over WMU.
In part, it’s due to the kinship. In part, it’s due to someone having intimate knowledge of the interworking of Izzo’s offense and defense.
“Obviously I’m familiar with what what they run,” Stephens said. “We run some of their stuff. Our defense is very similar. We both emphasize going to the boards and put a big emphasis on that. So my guys were really prepared, and we knew pretty much everything that they were going to do. And vice versa, they were prepared for us.”
The Broncos disrupted MSU’s offensive flow early, forcing a few early turnovers and getting a pair of 3-pointers from Brandon Muntu and another from JaVaughn Hannah to build an 11-5 cushion less than five minutes into the game.
“I thought we played like we thought we’re gonna win the game,” Izzo said, pointing to two Spartan turnovers in the first two minutes as a sign of things to come.
MSU flipped it from there, ripping off 13 unanswered points over the next four minutes. That stretch started with Xavier Booker altering a shot attempt by WMU’s Owen Lobsinger and then swatting his attempted kickout pass toward the baseline. Carr dove and saved the ball to Holloman, who quick-flicked it ahead to Richardson for a breakaway dunk. Then Holloman drained a late-shot clock 3-pointer and Richardson added a three-point play after finishing through a hard foul on a layup.
Stephens got whistled for a technical foul during that run after Jeremy Fears Jr. drew a foul on Willis. Then late in the half, the two guards found themselves tangled up again when Fears got called for a foul with 40.3 seconds left before half. The MSU point guard stood near the WMU player, and Willis pushed him — both received technical fouls.
The Spartans got the ball back after a stop, and Zapala tipped in an Akins miss at the buzzer to send them to the break ahead, 37-24. Both teams committed 11 turnovers through 20 minutes, but MSU’s defense stifled the Broncos to 3-for-16 from 3-point range and 33.3% overall from the field at half.
This wasn’t easy
WMU wouldn’t go away quietly, scrapping and clawing to remain in contention throughout the second half.
The Broncos opened the second half with seven points in less than a minute, sparked by a Burton layup through a foul and followed by a second-chance 3-pointer from Willis after the missed free throw attempt. A 3-pointer by Lobsinger made it a 10-0 start to the half and cut MSU’s lead to 37-34 with 17:40 to go.
But Zapala scored again in the paint, where the Spartans finished with a 36-28 scoring advantage. Akins followed that with a 3-pointer, and MSU once again appeared back on track.
“It’s just a wake up call before Big Ten play,” Akins said. “Every game is important, so we were really looking to build today. And we didn’t really get to do that. But going into this next game, we just gotta learn from this.”
WMU again mounted a final attempt to get back in it, with a Willis jumper cutting it back to a four-point game near the midpoint of the final period. But Fidler countered with a driving baseline layup that started the ultimate knockout punch. Cooper had a three-point play off a lob, and a layup by Richardson and free throws by Carr pushed MSU’s lead back to double digits for good with a little over five minutes to play.
“I think they have a really good team,” Stephens said. “Coach and I talked last week, and this team reminds me of the 2005 (Final Four) team. … They got a lot of depth, and when they go to the bench, they don’t lose anything. So I think they’re gonna have a really good year. I think their league is wide open, and I think they got as good a chance as anybody to do something special.”
Aside from the turnovers, the Spartans continue to see Fidler’s shot missing. The senior transfer from Nebraska-Omaha went 1-for-6 from the field and missed both of his 3-point attempts to finish with six points. And Jaxon Kohler and Booker again struggled, combining to go 1-for-8 overall and 0-for-6 from 3-point range for just three total points and six combined rebounds. However, Izzo said Kohler was sick going into the game and managed just one point and four rebounds in his 15:55 of court time.
The Spartans did go 20-for-22 at the free-throw line, including Carr making six of six and both Fidler and Akins making all four of theirs. And Izzo was clear to point out he felt Monday afternoon’s lackadaisical performance is the outlier from what he’s seen from his team all season as it prepares to resume conference action later this week in the new year.
“We got some work to do. So everybody that thinks we’re worthy, we’re worthy of being a really good team. And I can think of about 15 other Big Ten teams that are in the same boat as we are,” Izzo said. “And what we do between now and Friday night is gonna determine some of that. Because for the first time in a while, we’ve kind of faced some adversity where I did not like the way we played.
“Against Memphis, we lost that game and I liked the way we played. Kansas, I liked the way we played (but) I didn’t like the way we shot. Today, I didn’t like the way we played.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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