MSU overcomes sloppy start in preseason opener

---

Tweet

It started out ugly.

Very ugly.

Missed layups, ice-cold shooting and lacking two starters because of injury contributed to a slow and sloppy first half in the No. 2 MSU men’s basketball team’s preseason opener Sunday afternoon.

But the Spartans countered those first-half struggles with a more MSU-like second half, en route to a 76-45 exhibition win against Northwood.

“The first half was ugly. We weren’t communicating with each other, we weren’t really playing defense and I think everybody was just getting the first jitters out a little bit,” said junior guard Durrell Summers, who led MSU with 17 points. “In the second half, we said, ‘Bear down,’ and everybody needed to communicate … and play together, and that helped us.”

The Spartans entered the game knowing they’d be lacking depth, as senior forward Raymar Morgan (sprained left ankle) and junior guard Chris Allen (groin) didn’t dress.

Three minutes into the game, sophomore forward Delvon Roe also went out with a head injury, but even that couldn’t explain MSU’s cold shooting.

Summers scored MSU’s first basket five seconds into the game, but the next five minutes were full of balls clanking off the rim. The Spartans missed their next 11 shots — including six layups — as neither team scored until a jumper by sophomore guard Austin Thornton almost five minutes later.

While MSU dealt with shooting struggles, Northwood — or, more precisely, the trio of Dorian Pierce (13 points), Lionel Sullivan (13) and Booker Stoudmire (15) — was having a field day. The threesome scored all but four of the Timberwolves’ points, keeping up with MSU throughout the first half and going into halftime down 33-30.

“At halftime, we just told ourselves we weren’t playing good that first half – we came out and weren’t aggressive, weren’t attacking,” junior guard Kalin Lucas said. “At halftime, (head coach Tom Izzo) said we’ve got to pick it up, and our main focus was to go out there and sit down on defense. We sat down on defense and we knew we were going to get something good on offense and that worked out for us.”

The Spartans came out of halftime a different looking team, as Summers scored five of MSU’s first six points — including a baseline jumper to give MSU its first double-digit lead — as the Spartans finally found their groove.

Sophomore guard Korie Lucious (five assists) contributed a couple of no-look passes, freshman center Derrick Nix (13 points, five rebounds) showed his strength in the paint, and sophomore forward Draymond Green (14 points, 11 rebounds, four assists) found junior center Tom Herzog on the opposite block to put the Spartans up by 20 with about nine minutes remaining.

Four minutes later, a 3-pointer by senior guard Isaiah Dahlman and then a Nix free throw put MSU up 30 during a 7:33 Northwood scoring drought.

Four Spartans — Summers, Lucas (16), Green and Nix — scored in double figures, and every available Spartan played for MSU.

“This is even quicker than normal that we had an exhibition game this early,” Izzo said afterward of the early struggles.

“Then you start looking at scoring (without those players) and I mean, we shouldn’t look very good, to be honest with you, and we didn’t. But give them credit, they bounced back.”

---