Lucas scored seven points during the last minute, none more important than his jumper with 48.1 seconds that broke a 60-60 tie and brought MSU within a game of the Final Four.

“One thing we did was we competed, ” said Lucas, who scored 18 points in MSU’s 67-62 victory at Lucas Oil Stadium. “We did know Kansas was going to compete, we knew it was going to be a close game, and it was.”

After Lucas made his floater and the subsequent foul shot, the Big Ten Player of the Year drained all four of his free throw attempts to send the defending national champs back home, and the No. 2-seed Spartans to the Midwest Regional final where they will play No. 1-seed Louisville at 2:20 p.m. Sunday.

The red-hot Cardinals dismantled 12th-seeded Arizona 103-64 earlier Friday, extending their winning streak to 13 games.

“I said all year, (Lucas is) a big-time player,” senior guard Travis Walton said. “He wants the ball in his hands. He showed that to ya’ll last year when he made big plays against Pittsburgh. I think that’s the type of person Kalin is.”

Lucas’ basket, undoubtedly the biggest shot of his young-but-brilliant career, came on a broken play. After an MSU timeout, Izzo wanted his team to run a set play. But the play was defended nicely by the Jayhawks, forcing Lucas to improvise.

“The play didn’t work, so coach told everybody to spread the floor,” said Lucas, who was being defended by Kansas guard Sharron Collins. “I just went one-on-one, trying to create whether it was going to be for myself or for my teammates. I did a shot fake, jumped and I just threw my body into him.”

In some ways, the broken play was symbolic of MSU’s win.

Unlike the first meeting between the teams, which MSU won 75-62 on Jan. 10, nothing came easy for the Spartans. They shot poorly from the field (39 percent), committed 13 costly turnovers and were even out-rebounded (37-31).

They also had to overcome a significant nose injury to junior forward Raymar Morgan in the second half.

But like they did against Southern Cal the round earlier, the Spartans found a way to win.

“We weren’t always pretty looking — we had some bizarre lineups in there,” Izzo said. But even though we got out-shot and out-rebounded, I thought the shooting was more of those seven or eight layups they got off our turnovers.”

Collins led Kansas with 20 points, while center Cole Aldrich added 17 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks. But once again, Kansas got little production out of its role players.

Kansas head coach Bill Self said he’s proud of the toughness his young team showcased.

“(I’m) certainly proud of my guys,” Self said. “I mean, a bunch of young kids came in here and competed hard and wasn’t in aw of the atmosphere and the stakes. You know, we gave ‘em a run, we just didn’t finish the game.”

Senior center Goran Suton scored a team-high 20 points for the Spartans, who had to overcame a deficit of as large as 13 points to keep their season alive.

Kansas clung to that lead most of the night, but the Spartans slowly crept back into the game.

Suton’s buzzer-beating jumper capped a 10-4 MSU run to close the first half and freshman forward Draymond Green scored consecutive baskets to narrow MSU’s deficit to 40-39 with 17:02 left in the half.

Kansas extended its lead back up to six, but Walton’s floating 10-foot jumper — his first bucket of the game — gave the Spartans their first lead of the second half.

Although the Final Four is a single win away, the Spartans are still tight-lipped about the prospect of going for a championship in Detroit.

“It’s hard not to,” sophomore guard Durrell Summers admitted. “But we’ve been policing ourselves. We’ve just been staying focused on the task at hand.

Originally posted 2:31 a.m.