EVANSTON, Ill. – Even with a 23-point first-half lead, in front of a large contingent of Michigan State basketball fans filling Welsh-Ryan Arena, Tom Izzo knew Chris Collins’ team would make a run.
What he needed to see in Sunday afternoon’s second half at Northwestern was how his 14th-ranked Spartans would respond to that response.
The result left Izzo feeling good overall about his team’s tenacity and hot start but also a bit miffed at how it unfolded and potentially could have unraveled in the 78-68 victory.
“It doesn’t make me feel good. You want to finish strong,” Izzo said after MSU’s ninth straight win. “I mean, finishing games is a big key. And I did not like the way we finished. But I really was impressed by the maybe the first 20-some minutes, I really was. And I don’t get impressed easy.”
The win streak is the longest for the Spartans (14-2, 5-0 Big Ten) since they also won nine straight in 2021-22. The five-win start to conference play is MSU’s best since opening the 2018-19 Big Ten slate with nine straight victories en route to Izzo’s most recent Final Four appearance.
But it also was a second straight game in which Izzo watched his team appear to let off the gas after building a big lead.
In Thursday’s 88-54 blowout of Washington, the Spartans allowed 13 first-half points and 41 in the second period. That somewhat concerned Izzo, despite being ecstatic over what at one point was a 41-point lead.
MSU carried that swagger and all-around play at both ends of the floor into the opening half against the Wildcats (10-6, 1-4), who have lost three in a now but also are a veteran group under Collins.
GAME STORY: Michigan State basketball’s beautiful game dazzles Northwestern 78-68 in 9th straight win
All 10 Spartans who saw first-half action scored at least two points, nine grabbed at least one rebound and six had at least one assist. The ball was in perpetual motion as they were running in transition and finding one another in the half-court, with 14 assists on 18 baskets. Defensively, MSU held 19-plus-points-per-game scorer Brooks Barnhizer without a bucket and limited Northwestern to 4-for-15 shooting from 3-point range.
The Spartans took a 47-28 lead into the locker room, with the Green and White backers who made up seemingly half of the 7,039 fans in the stands making it feel like a home game.
“I feel like when we play like that, with our energy and we get the crowd going, we can’t be stopped,” said freshman Jase Richardson, who had 10 of his 13 points in the first half.
During halftime, Izzo said Richardson reminded his teammates to be prepared for what came next.
“We’re walking off the court, and he said, ‘Hey, this ain’t like some other teams. They’re going to come back the second half,’” Izzo recalled. “This team’s tough.”
The Spartans maintained their lead, though they committed seven of their eight second-half turnovers during a stretch in which the Wildcats cut it to 13 before MSU went back up by 18.
Then Northwestern began to attack. Partly to lengthen the game by drawing fouls to stop the clock but also to disrupt the Spartans’ offensive rhythm. And Collins’ strategy nearly worked.
The Wildcats hit 17 of 22 free throws in the second half and made 15 trips to the line in the final six minutes to take the game from an 18-point MSU lead to 8 with 19 seconds to play. The Spartans scored just two points on the break as the game turned into a muck-fest.
“When we’re going down and it’s foul for foul, it kind of disrupts the flow of the game,” Richardson said. “So we gotta kind of be more poised on our part and not foul.”
Northwestern also grabbed eight offensive rebounds in the final half, including six of them during the comeback stretch to offset the Spartans playing a turnover-free final 5:20.
“We just got lazy and lost focus in the second half, which we can’t really do,” said senior captain Jaden Akins, who had 14 points and went over the 1,000-point barrier by making six free throws in the final minutes.
Izzo added: “I thought it was poor job on our part, a great job on their part. I did not think we played physical enough. I did not. It was a battle cry going in.”
Another concern: Fears went 2-for-5 at the free-throw line in the second half, something to watch if games get tight late in the season and opponents are trying to foul MSU to try and orchestrate a comeback. The redshirt freshman point guard had 12 points and eight assists despite going 3-for-7 at the line.
“Free throw matter,” Fears said, “and I gotta make free throws.”
Yet some of these are minor quibbles considering the potential and production Izzo’s team displayed in the first half 20 minutes, calling it maybe the Spartans’ best half of basketball of the season.
Was MSU ever in jeopardy of losing Sunday? Not really after pulling away early. Were the Spartans’ sins unforgivable? Not at all, as they extended their win streak and stayed perfect in the Big Ten by showing Izzo’s remolded roster understands what he wants, even as it works to do those tasks consistently.
“When you think Michigan State basketball, those are the two things,” Collins said. “I think Coach Izzo, but then I think fast pace and rebounding. And this team is back to kind of vintage Michigan State in those two areas.”
However, taking a big-picture overview and with Penn State visiting MSU on Wednesday (7:30 p.m./BTN), Izzo realizes these issues could prove costly if they persist or continue to worsen deeper into the season and against better opponents.
“We did what we had to do,” Izzo said. “We didn’t play as good the second half. I think they had something to do with it. I think we had something to do with it.
“But this is a big road win for us right now. I think any road win is a big one.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball shows potency, flaws in 9th straight win
