EAST EAST – After kicking badly, making dirt and playing sloppy with the ball, the state of Michigan still found itself with a chance of its second victory over one of the first five opponents in a period of three days.
The game ended with two very clear final minutes, completing an impressive six-day period.
The Spartans recovered from nine points in the second half to win No. 4 Ohio State, 71-67, on Thursday night at the Breslin Center.
After traveling to Indiana last week with a record game over 0.500, the Spartans now have three straight wins to give themselves a clear path to the program’s 23rd consecutive NCAA tournament seat.
The Spartans (13-9, 7-9) arrived in Thursday’s game just off Illinois’ impressive No. 5 at Breslin Center on Tuesday.
They repeated that spell back from nine points down in the second half to tie the game in a basket by Marcus Bingham Jr. with 6:37 left, immediately after his block at the other end.
Ohio State (18-6, 12-6) went back up four points after that, but Spartan striker Joey Hauser continued his recent clutch kick by draining a 3-point basket in a time limit with 4:25 left to place his team on the floor for one.
The Spartans took the lead with 2:32 remaining in a pair of free throws from Malik Hall, and Aaron Henry and Joshua Langford added consecutive buckets to increase the lead.
Defensively, the Spartans forced seven consecutive Buckeyes errors to seal the game.
Henry continued his recent dominant game with an 18 point performance on shot 7 of 11. Gabe Brown scored 11 points as the only other scorer in the state of Michigan.
In comparison to the team’s victory over Illinois on Tuesday, almost a wire-to-wire victory, the Spartans outperformed a much more uneven game on Thursday. Two of his best players sat for significant periods in the first half due to foul problems. They missed 13 of 14 shots in a stretch during the second game in three days on a reduced rotation. Point guard Rocket Watts started game 1 to 10.
Langford sat down at 9:18 am in the first half with problems, and Henry went to the bench at 6:15 am for the same reason.
Without the two best players from the last two games, the Spartans fell from one to five in half. A 0 in 6 half of Rocket Watts did not help the effort.
Despite this, in addition to nine turns and 11 fouls in the first half, the Spartans lost just five to the break.
After seeing that deficit rise to nine, the Spartans struggled to complete their impressive week.
Michigan State continues its six-game, 13-day season closing period, traveling to Maryland on Sunday.