March Madness: Michigan State was in trouble. Then Spartans showed why they're elite.
ATLANTA — If you’re old enough and you’ve followed Michigan State basketball long enough, you’ve felt what you felt Friday night before.
That sense of trouble, deep in an NCAA Tournament. And you’ve also seen MSU teams that just have something about them, to where they find a way in the end.
Friday night’s 73-70 MSU Sweet 16 win over Mississippi had traces of the Iowa State regional final game in 2000, and hints of the win over Kansas in the regional semifinal nine years later. You might be able to think of a few other throat-tightening MSU NCAA tournament games. Games the Spartans had to dig deep and survive against worthy competition, during legendary NCAA tournament runs.
The Rebels gave the Spartans a taste of their own grit, with some tricky matchups that made things even more dicey.
“We weren’t the toughest team tonight, fellas,” Tom Izzo said Friday.
For a while, maybe. No question Ole Miss was jarringly tough. But there was no tougher team on the court in the final 10 minutes Friday than MSU.
You don’t have to be over 35 years old to have seen the Spartans pull out an important game that looked like it might go sideways. Wins this season against Oregon, at Illinois, at Michigan and at Iowa had elements of the win over Ole Miss.
What happened Friday is who this team is and what they do. And they’ve yet to run into an opponent that’s too much for them once they begin to figure it out and flex. Maybe 1-seed Auburn will be that team on Sunday in the South Regional final. The Tigers have some dudes who look like a problem. But MSU has been problem for their opponent 30 times now this season.
Izzo keeps saying that’s he’s had more talented teams than this one. Sure, in 2017-18 and 2013-14, and in 2008-09, and of course back in 1999 and 2000. But not as many as he thinks.
And being a connected group of psychotic competitors is a talent. In that regard, I’d put this team up there with any he’s had. Add in their defensive versatility and relentlessness, their calmness late in games, and a future first-round NBA draft pick in freshman Jase Richardson — who put up 20 points on eight shots — and we’re not talking about some group of overachievers.
Friday’s win was the fourth time this MSU season that I've left a game thinking differently about the Spartans’ ceiling. The way they jumped North Carolina out of the gate in Maui showed a tenacity and talent level that was new. When they took Illinois’ best punch on the road and then took Illinois’ soul in the second half, it was clear they had the mental toughness to do big things.
And when they went to Maryland — a game I thought they’d lose going in — and were the better and tougher team for 75% of the game, I realized they were going to win the Big Ten. Maryland’s fans and students applauded the Terrapins that night as they left the court in defeat. They recognized what they had been up against.
And then Friday night, I had it wrong again. I thought the Spartans would be the slightly better team. They were not — until they suddenly were.
“It shows you how important connectivity is,” Izzo said. “It shows you how important togetherness is. It shows you how important pulling for one another is, and that's what makes this so cool.”
There’s a lot that’s cool about this MSU team. They’ve reinvigorated a program and fan base that was dying to win big again — led by a coach who said he’d die trying to do it. To do just this.
Friday’s night’s win did not put the Spartans in the Final Four yet. They have to beat Auburn still to get there.
But this qualified as Izzo fulfilling his promise from last March, “to get back to a deeper run in this tournament.” This is territory where elite teams and programs live — hence the title, “Elite Eight.” This is a place MSU hasn’t been since 2019, when it was also an elite team and program.
“It's been feeling like something special for a while now, just this team,” MSU senior Jaden Akins said after enjoying a moment alone for a minute at his locker at State Farm Arena. “That's why we’ve got to keep going.”
MORE: Couch: Jaden Akins met the moment Sunday in leading Michigan State to the Sweet 16
Friday night’s win will quickly give way to focus on Sunday's 5:05 p.m. tipoff against Auburn. If Michigan had beaten Auburn in the second game here Friday night, we wouldn’t have spent another second on MSU's win over the Rebels. In that respect, it’s nice that we didn’t get a third meeting of MSU and Michigan, this time with a Final Four on the line. Because the Spartans’ win over Ole Miss deserves a minute to marinate.
MSU was hanging on for a half and then some. Every shot in the opening 20 minutes seemed to come late in the shot clock. Every make, an exhale.
MSU, which survived by making 5 of 12 3s in the first half and little else, hit 14 of 25 shots after halftime, but just 1 of 5 from long range. Almost everything came on the drive, in the paint or at the free-throw line, an adjustment that won the game for them.
“Every bucket that we got in that first half kind of felt like a relief for us,” said Richardson, who had three of those buckets, all beyond the 3-point arc. “I told Coach (Izzo) going into that second half that they're just trying to deny me 3s. That's what I saw as the half went on. So I knew I could get downhill on these guys. … I felt like I could get to the basket.”
Richardson did, several times catching the ball on the move, where he’s most effective. Akins got to the rim, too, including twice on drives during a key stretch when MSU took its first lead. Coen Carr nearly broke the rim, with a one-handed dunk off a Jeremy Fears Jr. steal that Izzo described as worth 3 1/2 points.
It put the Spartans up 59-58 with about four minutes left. After Ole Miss took the lead right back on a 3-pointer, Fears, Richardson and Akins each scored driving buckets to put MSU ahead. Then, Carson Cooper, a few feet from the rim, hit the shot of his career for the biggest four-point lead of the season, 67-63 with 40 seconds left.
The rest of it was free throws — two by Akins, four by Holloman. Not one of them needed a friendly bounce.
What were they thinking when they stepped to the line?
“Make them,” Holloman said.
“Get arc on the ball and make them,” Akins said.
MSU hit 13 of its 14 free throws in the second half.
The way the Spartans played the final minutes Friday — and so often this season — makes you like their chances if they can get to even on the scoreboard heading down the stretch against Auburn or anyone.
“I feel like we've been in so many of those moments throughout the year, where it's like a four-point game, two-point game with like two minutes left, we just just know how to win those games,” Akins said.
Friday’s nail-biting win put these Spartans in another stratosphere, where everyone is elite.
“It feels like we belong,” Holloman said.