EAST LANSING — Tom Izzo was asked, a little more than two weeks ago after a tight win at Ohio State, where his comfort level was with Michigan State basketball’s physical and mental toughness.
“I’m growing,” he said then. “I’m not there yet.”
On Sunday, the 12th-ranked Spartans once again showed progress in both areas. From last season’s late-game struggles. From early November as they learned to play together. Even from that Jan. 3 road victory over the Buckeyes.
MSU shook off a sluggish start, took a lead for good midway through the second half and withstood every punch No. 20 Illinois delivered. When things got tight late, Izzo’s veterans showed up with big buckets and even bigger defensive stops.
Not long after Jeremy Fears Jr. threw the final inbound pass deep to Carson Cooper to run off the final second of the Spartans’ gritty 80-78 victory over the Illini, Izzo was asked the same question as he was in Columbus. And he again replied that they are “getting better.”
“I thought we showed some mental and physical toughness and a little character,” Izzo said Sunday. “When we were down, we were down, we were down, we were behind 90% of the game it seemed like. And then once we made a little run, (the Illini) didn’t collapse, either. So that’s two good basketball teams.”
As well as maybe the two deepest and well-rounded squads in the Big Ten right now. Even though after an epic battle that hearkened back to the days of yore — both from the tenacity of physicality on the court and the voracity of the Izzone — Izzo was quick to point out, “We got some challenges ahead of us, and we’re looking forward to them.”
“It was exciting, so I’ll just take a big win,” he said. “I know we didn’t play great, I know they had their moments when they didn’t either. But that’s what happens when two good teams clash.”
ANALYSIS: Something is brewing within MSU basketball. And it feels a lot like it used to
First-place MSU (16-2, 7-0 Big Ten) extended its longest streak since winning 13 straight during the 2018-19 season, one that catapulted those Spartans to a second of three consecutive Big Ten regular-season titles and Izzo’s more recent Final Four trip. And the hard-fought victory over the Illini (13-5, 5-3) puts them in command to capture their first league crown since the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, something Izzo’s players — none of whom were part of the program back then — are pointing to as a rallying point.
“We know what we want to do,” said senior captain Jaden Akins, whose driving layup with 1:13 to play helped stave off one final Illinois charge. “It’s something I’ve never done before. And it’s my last year, so I’m trying to leave with hardware.”
The Spartans clawed back from an early 10-point deficit after getting Illini star freshman Kasparas Jakučionis into foul trouble he never recovered from. The 6-foot-6 Lithuanian guard played just 8 minutes and 34 seconds before fouling out with 6:39 to play after getting his team within two. The Spartans held Jakučionis to three points on 1-for-3 shooting with three assists.
“Coming into these type of games, I think the little things matter the most,” said senior wing Frankie Fidler, who drew Jakučionis’ fifth foul and hit two free throws as part of his 11-point, three-rebound, three-assist performance. “That’s unfortunate that he got in foul trouble. But I mean, it happens during the game. When we realized he had two or three, we wanted to go at him.”
The Spartans also deployed a variety of combinations throughout the game to slow down the rest of the Illini, going ultra-athletic to pull into a 36-all halftime tie. After giving up 26 points in the first 12 minutes, MSU held Illinois to 10 over the final 7:34 before the break. The defense clamped down, forcing the Illini to miss 15 of their final 20 shots in the closing 10 minutes after a 10-for-19 start.
“We stuck with it, and we just kept on playing,” said sophomore Xavier Booker, part of that late-half lineup. “We didn’t let the mistakes get to us. We didn’t let it bring us down. We just kept on playing and kept on playing and kept on playing the whole 40 minutes.
“And that’s the main thing, the mental toughness with this team. We fought the whole 40 minutes, and it’s a great feeling to get this win.”
It showed again late in the game, when Illinois made one final run after a bench technical foul with 3:18 to play and two Fidler free throws pushed MSU’s lead back to six.
Kylan Boswell and Morez Johnson Jr. both hit layups to cut it to a one-possession game with 1:53 to play, then Johnson split a pair of free throws to make it 76-75 with 1:29 remaining.
Akins took the ball to the basket off the dribble and banked in a tough shot with English in traffic after three straight Illinois defensive stops. Boswell answered with a bucket with 58.3 seconds left, Akins missed a tough layup attempt and the Illini rebounded. This time, the Spartans’ defense held, forcing Boswell into a turnover when his no-look pass to Tomislav Ivišić went out of bounds.
Tre Holloman, who led MSU with 17 points, hit a pair of free throws with 5.9 seconds left to to ahead 80-77. The Spartans then fouled Boswell with 3.9 to play to prevent a potential game-tying 3-point attempt. He made the first free throw and intentionally missed the second, grabbed the rebound on the baseline behind the backboard and tried to shoot over it. The shot was ruled illegal and the Spartans celebrated as Cooper collected the Fears pass just past halfcourt.
A huge exhale. And an even deeper inhale looking ahead, because this won’t be their last meeting.
MSU makes the trip to Champaign for the rematch Feb. 15. It is one of three home-and-home matchups for the Spartans in the expanded 18-team Big Ten, with home and road games to come against No. 19 Michigan, and a visit to Breslin from Minnesota on Jan. 28. The Spartans opened league play with an 18-point Dec. 4 win in Minneapolis.
A coast-to-coast travel stretch also is fast-approaching.
Izzo’s team is idle until Saturday’s game in New York against Rutgers at Madison Square Garden (1:30 p.m., CBS). After hosting the Gophers, MSU heads to Los Angeles to face USC on Feb. 1 and UCLA on Feb. 4, returning home to host No. 14 Oregon on Feb. 8 and Indiana three days later.
Then comes the trip to Illinois, which starts a stretch of four of six games on the road. Knowing how the schedule ratchets up, Izzo remained cautious to throw too much praise his players’ way Sunday.
Even though his sense of pride in their development was clear.
“It’s nice to see people respond,” Izzo said. “It’s nice to see them have to get their character challenged a little bit and what they did. …
“So I’m being realistic. We have a ceiling still to get to, we gotta get there. Because (the Illini) are gonna have a ceiling, too, and they’re gonna get there.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tom Izzo: Michigan State basketball gets tougher in win over Illinois
