National Basketball Association
Michigan St 88, Southern Utah 63
When: 6:00 PM ET, Saturday, December 9, 2017
Where: Breslin Center, East Lansing, Michigan
Officials:
# Bart Wegenke, # Chris Beaver, # Andy O'Brien
Attendance:
14797
By The Sports Xchange
EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan State could be ranked No. 1 next week. Coach Tom Izzo has this message to the voters: Bring it on.
Michigan State stretched its winning streak to eight games with an 88-63 victory over pesky Southern Utah on Saturday at the Breslin Center.
No. 1 Duke lost to Boston College on Saturday and No. 2 Kansas fell to Washington on Wednesday, putting the Spartans in position to rise to the top spot when the next Associated Press Top 25 is released.
"I love that bulls-eye. They could put Villanova up there, they've been playing awfully well, but if it's us, that's a great bulls-eye," Izzo said. "That's a dream come true. You always want your team to be ranked high. I want to see if we can handle it. So if we are blessed with that, that would be great."
The Spartans had some trouble putting away the Thunderbirds but eventually took control during the last eight minutes.
Sophomore forward Miles Bridges racked up 17 points, 11 rebounds and six assists.
"I thought this was Miles' best game," Izzo said. "That will sound a little crazy because 17 points was one of his lowest point production over the last year. You look at him taking it to the basket, you look at him rebounding, you look at the six assists, his defense was a lot better. You're starting to see the real Miles now."
Freshman Jaren Jackson supplied 17 points, 13 rebounds and five blocks, while Nick Ward also scored 17 points for the Spartans (9-1). Cassius Winston contributed 15 points and five assists.
Yet, the victory came a little tougher than expected.
"That's just a team coming in here and shooting with a lot of confidence," Jackson said. "Sometimes that's going to happen, when they just hit it from everywhere. We've just got to learn to be more disciplined. Luckily, we were able to close the game out."
Jadon Cohee, Dre Marin and Jacob Calloway each scored 12 points for Southern Utah (5-4). The Thunderbirds made 11 of 26 3-point attempts but had 12 shots blocked.
"Our gameplan was to get up 30 3s and try to make 15 of them," Southern Utah coach Todd Simon said. "We were coming off a game where we did just that. We felt like we could again because they're so aggressive defensively. We end up 11 for 26 and probably wanted to get up even more. We passed up some and drove inside the trees and learned that's not a good strategy."
Michigan State led 42-30 at halftime. The Thunderbirds hung around by making 6 of 14 attempts from long range.
The Thunderbirds made a handful of 3s in the first 7:35 of the second half, including one from Calloway that pulled them within five at 56-51.
Jackson's three-point play with 8:21 remaining nudged the lead back to 10 at 66-56. An 18-3 Michigan State outburst put the game away.
"We felt if we could get a few breaks and a few shots to fall, we could make it pretty interesting down the stretch," Simon said. "We had a couple that didn't go and they're so explosive, we knew at any given time they could go 10-0 or 15-0 in a hurry."
NOTES: The teams were meeting for the first time. The Spartans are now 6-2 all-time against Big Sky Conference opponents. ... Michigan State has a 152-12 record in non-conference home games since Tom Izzo became head coach in 1995. ... The Thunderbirds get a week off before hosting Central Michigan on Saturday. The Spartans have a similar gap before facing Oakland (Mich.) at Detroit's Little Caesars Arena. ... Southern Utah needs one more victory to match last season's win total, when it finished 6-27 in Todd Simon's first season as head coach.
Top Game Performances
| Southern Utah |
|
Michigan St |
|
Jacob Calloway 12 |
Scoring |
Miles Bridges 17 |
|
Jadon Cohee 5 |
Assists |
Miles Bridges 6 |
|
Ivan Madunic 8 |
Rebounds |
Jaren Jackson Jr. 13 |
|
Dre Marin 5 |
Free Throws Made |
Jaren Jackson Jr. 11 |
|
Jacob Calloway 2 |
Steals |
Miles Bridges 1 |
|
N/A |
Blocks |
Jaren Jackson Jr. 5 |
Team Stats Summary
| Team |
Points |
FG% |
3PM-3PA |
FTM-FTA |
Assists |
Rebounds |
Blocks |
Steals |
Turnovers |
| Southern Utah
|
63 |
32.3 |
11-26 |
10-16 |
13 |
30 |
0 |
8 |
9 |
| Michigan St
|
88 |
47.5 |
9-19 |
23-31 |
24 |
48 |
12 |
6 |
11 |
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