Morgan completed a furious alley-oop dunk on the first play of the game and never hit the brakes, scoring a team-high 16 points to motor No. 2-seed MSU past Robert Morris 77-62 in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday at the Metrodome.

??“I just wanted to come out and be aggressive,” Morgan said. “We worried really hard this week on just defending them and working on our offense. That was the game plan from the start and I thought we accomplished a lot of our goals tonight.”

With the win, MSU advances to second round of the Big Dance for the third consecutive year. It will look to earn its second straight trip to the Sweet 16 on Sunday against No. 10-seed Southern Cal, which earlier Friday upset No. 7-seed Boston College.

After a subpar showing in the Big Ten Tournament, Morgan looked every bit like the player he was before mid-January, when he came down with walking pneumonia and mononucleosis.

He collected five rebounds, recorded a steal that led to a breakaway dunk and played tenacious defense despite being saddled in foul trouble nearly the entire first half and playing only 20 minutes.

“He’s really shot the ball well this week, and he was so good defensively two days at home I almost had to tell him to chill out because we had trouble running the scout team offense,” MSU head coach Izzo said. “He took a giant step. I think as a team we took a big step.”

Freshman forward Draymond Green matched Morgan with a career-high 16 points while senior center Goran Suton tallied 11 points and a season-high 17 rebounds.

Sophomore guard Kalin Lucas also finished in double figures for the Spartans, recording 13 points and four assists.

Guard Jeremy Chappell led Robert Morris with 11 points, but shot just 5-of-14 from the field. Chappell, the Northeast Conference Player of the Year, was harassed throughout the night by MSU senior guard Travis Walton.

Green’s career effort came on the heels of a meeting Izzo organized for his underclassmen before the game during which he went over his expectations for them during the tournament.

“I just wanted to make sure they knew that, coming to a tournament with the same intensity, whether we want to admit it or not, isn’t good enough,” Izzo said.

Green said Izzo also had some personal advice to offer, which he heeded against Robert Morris.

“He told me I get low on focus sometimes,” Green said. “So I have to pick my focus level up.”

Green, built at a stocky 6-foot-6, established that focus in the paint, where he bullied his way to 7-of-8 shooting night.

As a team, the Spartans were dominant in the paint, using their height advantage to out-rebound the Colonials 49-28.

MSU sophomore guard Chris Allen’s 3-pointer from the right elbow gave MSU a 15-9 lead with 15:23 left in the first half, but Robert Morris kept it close.

Playing pesky defense and collecting timely offensive rebounds, the Colonials took their first lead of the game when guard Mezie Nwigme drilled a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 6:06 remaining in the period.

But their lead lasted just 16 seconds as Green’s acrobatic layup on the other end tied the game at 30 and sparked the Spartans on a 13-2 run to close the half.

Allen led the Spartans with 10 first-half points and Suton collected 12 rebounds as MSU entered intermission with a 41-30 lead.

“That run right before the half I think really did some damage,” Izzo said. “Then our defense in the second half, we held them scoreless for a while and that was the difference in the game.”

The Spartans opened the second half like they finished the first, darting through the lane for easy baskets and playing suffocating defense to extend their lead to 51-30 with 15:24 left in the game. Robert Morris, which shot 41 percent for the game, wasn’t able to recover.

Tip-off for Sunday’s game against the Trojans is set for 5 p.m.