Dawson, Michigan State drop Michigan in rivalry tilt
ANN ARBOR – The story of the desperate senior looking for one last chance at something is an irresistible one in college sports, and Michigan State brought a pair of them to Crisler Center on Tuesday.
Branden Dawson and Travis Trice were the best basketball players, and perhaps the happiest people, in the city of Ann Arbor on their last official trip. Dawson had a season-high 23 points to go with 13 rebounds, Trice came off the bench for 22 points and seven assists, and the Spartans got their first win at Michigan since 2010, 80-67.
In breaking its four-game losing streak in Ann Arbor, MSU (18-8, 9-4 Big Ten) extended its overall winning streak in the series to three. Tom Izzo's team continued to strengthen its NCAA tournament résumé with a third straight win, including Saturday's over No. 23 Ohio State.
And Dawson and Trice got their first win at Crisler in their last chance – this was the only Big Ten arena, other than the two that joined this season, in which they had not scored a victory. Two of those three losses at U-M were of the agonizing, one-point variety, though Dawson missed last season's with a broken hand.
He terrorized the Wolverines (13-13, 6-8) as usual Tuesday, while Trice had his best game yet in his third straight game off the bench with freshman Lourawls (Tum Tum) Nairn starting at point guard. Nairn ran the point for most of the night and Trice was off the ball, and he was spectacular as a shooter and passer.
Michigan — missing its two best players, Caris LeVert (foot) and Derrick Walton (foot), as in a 76-66 overtime loss at MSU on Feb. 1 — was resolved to take MSU junior Denzel Valentine's shooting away, and that's what the Wolverines did.
Valentine had just two baskets and six points, but he was a defensive presence for the Spartans, and the MSU center tandem of Gavin Schilling and Matt Costello combined for 17 points and nine boards.
Both teams were grinding for every point for the first seven minutes of the game, but then Michigan stayed there and MSU found its rhythm. A 10-0 run in less than three minutes made it 21-8 MSU and featured a pair of Trice threes and a Trice lob to Dawson.
The MSU run increased to 22-6 and the lead to 33-14 on a series of impressive plays. The Spartans were getting out and running, and even when they weren't they were finding a way in the halfcourt – for instance, a Nairn corner three with the shot clock winding down.
That made it 27-13. Trice followed a driving left-handed layup with a lob for a monstrous Dawson dunk, then another lob for another Dawson layup, and U-M coach John Beilein had to take his second timeout of the half, down 33-14 with 5:52 left.
The Wolverines responded to that pause, outscoring the Spartans 9-5 for the rest of the half to give themselves a chance at a second-half comeback. MSU outshot U-M 59% to 36% in the first 20 minutes, with the Wolverines going 1-for-8 from three. That's what needed to change for U-M.
Freshman Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, who had 18 points in MSU's overtime win over U-M on Feb. 1 and none in the first half Tuesday, drilled two threes and another jumper early in the second.
A 19-point lead was down to 11, but then Dawson pushed it back up – a dunk, a post-up jumper, an offensive board and pass to Gavin Schilling for a dunk. The lead never got into single digits.
Joe Rexrode writes for The Detroit Free Press.