Even though we were warned in the leadup to this game that the Big Red of Cornell are a very good three-point shooting team, this game did not go quite like I imagined it would. But once the game got started,
the Big Red were red hot. They scored the first bucket for a 2-0 lead, raced out to a 9-2 advantage, went up double digits at 15-4, and were still in control 28-19 after ten minutes. Cornell was applying the full court press on every possession and were launching three-pointers like they were going out of style. They had made four in the first ten minutes. With the rate that they were connecting, I was picking up some 2016 Middle Tennessee State vibes.
After the midpoint of the 1st half, the Spartans began chipping away at their deficit, led largely by Jeremy Fears, who finally decided to get out of his shooting slump. At the 5:46 mark, MSU took their first lead, 37-35 on a Kur Teng triple. There were several ties and lead changes down the stretch of the 1st, but a Coen Carr layup with 38 seconds to go followed by one from Fears at the buzzer gave Michigan State a 55-53 lead at the break. The 108 total points were the fourth highest 1st half this college basketball season.
Jeremy Fears had 15 points and 5 dimes at the break. Coen Carr and Kur Teng each had 8. One of the biggest contributors to MSU’s comeback from the early deficit was the eagerness of Cornell to commit fouls. The Spartans were in the bonus in under 7 minutes, the double bonus in under 12, and had drawn 15 whistles by halftime.
The second half saw two trends continue from the first half. The first was Cornell’s foul-happy behavior. After committing 15 fouls in the first, they added 20 to their total in the second; two Cornell players fouled out while two others finished with four. The other trend that continued after halftime was the high frequency of triples that Cornell was shooting. The thing that changed was the Big Red’s ability to hit those shots. After going 6/16 from deep in the first, they went 9/28 in the second. However, six of those makes were in the final five minutes, after MSU already ballooned their lead to 20. They only made one triple in the first ten minutes of the second half.
While the visitors struggled with their shot after the break, MSU’s offense was even more efficient. Jeremy Fears continued his dominant performance, finishing with 21 points (7/11 shooting, 3/5 on 3s) and 11 assists. The lid had come off on all his shots; not only was he hitting from deep, but he was also finishing inside. Equally important, he was probably the Spartan who drew the most fouls from Cornell, and he only had two turnovers.
Coen Carr finished with 19 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 assists. Trey Fort (14), Divine Ugochukwu (12), Jaxon Kohler (11 and 10 rebounds), and Kur Teng (10) gave the Spartans a half-dozen players in double figures. And with the comfortable lead as the game wound down, Izzo put in the benchwarmers, and Nick Sanders buried a triple on MSU’s last possession to give the Spartans their highest scoring output at the Breslin since 2008. After a tense first half, MSU took over in the second to run away with a 114-97 victory.
3 Things I Liked:
1. Fears making his shots. In the previous five games, Fears was a combined 1/12 on his triples, and 9/38 on all his FGs. I can’t say that one game means the slump is over, but there was something symbolic about Fears taking over in the last non-con game to put the Big Ten on notice. Also, the 11 dimes were two off his career high, which he reached twice earlier this year.
2. Higher utilization of the three-point shot. Tonight, MSU took 28 attempts from beyond the arc, making 13 of them. I know this is not the highest amount of triples this year’s team has taken, but there have been an undesirable number of games where that number has been in the low teens. With three players – Jesse McCulloch, Jaxon Kohler, and Divine Ugochukwu – shooting over 40%, and a fourth – Kur Teng – at 39.5%, there are enough guys on this team to be shooting more from deep than we have been.
3. Keeping our fouls down. For the game, MSU only committed 20 fouls. No starter had more than 2, and four of the starters only had 1. Cam Ward had four, Jordan Scott and Denham Wojcik had 3, and everyone else just had one other than Kohler, who had the two.
3 Things I Disliked:
1. Free Throw shooting woes. While MSU benefitted from Cornell’s fouling, the Spartans did not always take advantage of it. Out of 43 attempts, Michigan State only hit 29, an unimpressive 67%. Coen Carr and his 9/16 performance was the primary culprit.
2. Trey Fort is a chucker. It was good to see Trey with his season high of 14 (and only his second time reaching double digits for MSU), but his 11 shot attempts were tied with Fears for team high. Fort, however, only played 14 minutes, 7 less than Fears. In one short stretch, Fort missed four shots in the span of 45 seconds, three of which were on the same possession. And then, at the end of the game, with Nick Sanders and the Walton Twins in the game, Fort deprived those players who are on limited minutes of a shot attempt when he jacked up a triple with 43 seconds left. When those guys are on the floor, no other Spartan should take a shot.
3. Carson Cooper only taking three shots. As president of the Carson Cooper Fan Club, I am greatly angered by him only getting three official attempts. Sure, he made it to the line a bunch (7 attempts), but that still doesn’t make up for it.
That’s it for this one. Next game is Friday against Nebraska.
