EAST LANSING — It was a surprising scare Michigan State basketball did not expect in a week that almost went disastrously wrong.
Four days after putting up a tough showing last Tuesday in a loss to No. 1 Kansas in the Champions Classic, the Spartans returned home to another dogfight against Bowling Green on Saturday. They managed to escape with a win — barely.
MSU erased a 12-point first-half hole and needed to come back again in the final 7½ minutes for an 86-72 win over the Falcons, getting key contributions from seven players who scored in double figures to prevent the upset.
“The mantra of our year and our team is togetherness,” said junior Carson Cooper, who had a career-high 12 points.
GRAHAM COUCH: 3 quick takes on Michigan State basketball’s 86-72 scare against Bowling Green
The Spartans (3-1) need those well-rounded performances Tuesday when they host Samford at 8 p.m. at Breslin Center. Especially with a long journey to the Maui Invitational — and three potentially arduous games against high-major competition — ahead.
And by the time they land in Hawaii before Monday’s game with Colorado, Tom Izzo’s team will have faced a complete spectrum of the top and bottom of college basketball.
“I mean when you run into these small teams, who knows who we will face in Hawaii, three different teams we will play,” Izzo said Saturday night. “At least we have been put in different positions.”
Tuesday’s game will not be televised, streaming on Peacock, NBC’s online-only service.
Samford (4-1) enters on a three-game win streak and is coming off a 97-82 victory Sunday over Texas Southern. The Bulldogs have twice been tested on the road early in the young season, losing by two at Cornell on Nov. 8 and winning by one in overtime at North Alabama on Friday.
Facing MSU will be Samford’s fourth game in a week. The Bulldogs finished 27-5 to win the Southern Conference in 2023-24, coming in at 74th in the NCAA NET rankings a season ago. None of which matters when the calendar flips — Bowling Green was 228th a year ago in finishing 18-13.
Meantime, Izzo’s team has looked somewhere between haggard — in its 77-69 loss to the Jayhawks in Atlanta last Tuesday — to lackadaisical — in the early going against the Falcons. And before the Spartans can get to Maui and potentially face two-time defending national champion Connecticut or perennial power North Carolina, they must summon up a better start against Samford first to prevent recent history from repeating itself.
“You get up for a game like Kansas, or the No. 1 team in the country, and then you come back and play,” senior Jaden Akins said after getting 13 points, 12 rebounds and six assists Saturday. “And you can’t think, ‘Oh, everybody just comes in and we win the game easily.’ ”
Izzo said he felt the Spartans “did play better” against the Jayhawks than they did versus the Falcons.
“Bowling Green came after us and did some things as well or harder than anybody we played Tuesday night, to be honest about it,” he said.
Samford looks much different than a year ago, with only 6-foot point guard Rylan Jones (8.8 points, 6.6 assists per game) the lone starter returning. The sixth-year senior began his career with two seasons at Utah then was a teammate of recent MSU addition Szymon Zapala at Utah State before joining the Bulldogs last season.
Four other first-year transfers are in the Bulldogs’ projected starting lineup, led by 6-9 forward Jaden Bronwell’s 15.6 points and five rebounds per game. Coach Bucky McMillan’s squad ranks seventh in the nation in scoring at 97.6 points a game.
MSU, meanwhile, got another impactful showing from its reserves and outscored Bowling Green 37-6 from its bench players. MSU’s 41.3 points per game from its backups ranks 17th in the country.
“There’s no drop off,” said sophomore Coen Carr, who had 11 points and five rebounds in 26 minutes off the bench. “Everybody comes in and does their job. It’s like we have a team full of starters. Just having that can definitely take a toll on (opponents).”
Prediction
Jaden Akins continues to drive the momentum from a scoring perspective, and big man Xavier Booker looks more engaged and focused from the outset. The Spartans also show Saturday’s shaky start against the Falcons was merely a mirage, and they continue to get scoring, rebounding and assists from the backups in abundance. The pick: MSU 87, Samford 65.
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball faces Samford in last game before Maui trip
