18-19 michigan state

For the third time this season, Michigan fell apart in the second half against Michigan State. For the second time, they handed a banner to their rival. This one was closer down the stretch, but State scored the last ten points of the game after erasing a 13-point second half deficit. With the game tied at 60 with less than a minute left, Zavier Simpson missed a wide open three, Cassius Winston muscled a layup past Jon Teske to take the lead, Ignas Brazdeikis missed a floater badly, and Aaron Henry missed the back end of a one-and-one. With the Wolverines trailing by three, Winston tried to give a foul on Jordan Poole, Poole put up a shot, and the refs swallowed their whistle on a clear three-point foul to effectively end the game.

Michigan State started the game up 17-11, but Xavier Tillman’s second foul with about nine minutes left in the first half swung the game. With Nick Ward and Thomas Kithier at the five, Michigan found easy looks in the ball screen game and locked up the Michigan State offense. Two threes by Matt McQuaid were the only Spartan points for the rest of the half, and Michigan took a solid 31-23 lead into halftime. Despite another McQuaid three to open the scoring after the break, Michigan extended the lead: an off-balance Poole three, an Iggy three over Kenny Goins, and a pair of Iggy free throws put the score at 39-26. By that point, Iggy had scored 17 points — he was Michigan’s only source of offense early on and had made a few threes. Michigan State shut him down from there.

Much like in Michigan’s previous losses to State, the Spartans went on an inexorable run over much of the second half to get the win. In those first two wins, the hero was Winston; in this game, it was McQuaid. The senior wing went off for 27 points, including 7-13 from three point range (State’s other players were just 2-10). Winston read Michigan cheating off McQuaid in the weakside corner on the pick and roll, and the sharpshooter made the Wolverines pay. McQuaid was essential in State’s comeback, and came up big late by twice getting State to within two points after they’d fallen down five, baiting Poole into a three-point foul with two minutes left, and hitting a three over Zavier Simpson. Goins had a rough game and Winston took a while to get going, but McQuaid was there to pick up the slack and take advantage of every poor tag and recover.

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The Wolverine offense again bogged down in the second half. In the first half, Michigan scored a respectable 1.15 points per possession, and in the second, they scored just 0.88. Michigan settled and went one-on-one against State’s switch-heavy defense, Tillman was an important presence inside, and Michigan couldn’t feed the ball to Teske when they managed to switch Winston onto him. The Wolverines’ shot selection was about as bad as it’s been all season. Tillman was impressive once again: State was clearly more vulnerable defensively as he sat on the bench in the first half, and Tillman was active on the offensive glass to generate a few extra possessions in the second. Tom Izzo realized that his backup bigs couldn’t handle this game, and played Tillman 18 minutes after halftime.

Michigan defended Cassius Winston well for most of the game, but it was his work in the ball screen game with Xavier Tillman that propelled Michigan State in the second half. Winston, who had just 3 points and 4 assists in the first half, had 11 and 7 in the second — finding McQuaid on the kick and Tillman on the roll, and eventually getting a couple buckets himself. It was a tough Winston layup past Isaiah Livers to beat the shot clock that completed the Spartan comeback and tie the game at 48, and Winston’s ability to power a shot up through a strong Teske contest gave State what would prove to be the game-winner with a little over 30 seconds left. Simpson had a decent game — 10 assists to just 1 turnover — but missed all of his shots from three, including one late in the game. For the third time this season, Winston won that battle.

After State tied the game at 48, Michigan got out in transition for an Iggy dunk and Simpson found Teske for a quick turn and lay-up alley-oop. Winston hit both free throws after a Teske reach in, Poole made 1-2 free throws after getting fouled on a fastbreak, then Winston got around Poole for another late clock layup. After the last TV timeout — Michigan was up one — a nice set play got Poole two free throws (he made both), and Simpson blew past Winston for a layup. Livers responded to McQuaid’s three free throws with a big three, but Michigan didn’t score on their final four possessions. Starting with that McQuaid three over Simpson, State scored on each of their final four possessions.

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Had the foul on Poole’s final shot been called correctly (Winston was clearly trying to give a foul and grabbed Poole’s arm with both hands), Michigan would have needed an 82% free throw shooter to knock down all three free throws and would have needed to get a stop on a State possession with a couple of seconds to work with to even force overtime. None of the refs blew the whistle, Goins caught the airball, and the game was over. Michigan played poorly on both ends in the second half and State’s comeback — outscoring the Wolverines by 18 over the last 17 minutes of the game — didn’t hinge on one play… but it was a tough no-call for Michigan.

State won the Big Ten Tournament, the regular season title, and all three matchups against Michigan. Both teams enter the NCAA Tournament as two-seeds, and Michigan will have to advance past Montana (again) and either Nevada or Florida to get to the Sweet 16. Potential matchups against Texas Tech, Buffalo, Gonzaga, Florida State, Marquette, and Ja Morant would stand in the way of a second straight Final Four.

[Box score after the JUMP]