Michigan State basketball barely grinds out a huge 80-78 win over Illinois

EAST LANSING – Michigan State basketball passed its first major test of the season.

That makes 11 straight wins, a perfect start to Big Ten play and a significant display of strength and determination to come back in the second half.

The 12th-ranked Spartans got nine critical second-half points from Frankie Fidler, and Tre Holloman hit two free throws with 5.4 seconds left to ice their 80-78 win over No. 20 Illinois on Sunday after- noon at the Breslin Center.

Holloman had 17 points, and Fidler and Coen Carr scored 11 as MSU (16-2, 7-0 Big Ten) extended its longest streak since winning 13 straight during the 2018 season. 19.

The Spartans got a ton of overall contributions, though, with nine points and six assists from Jeremy Fears Jr., eight points and six rebounds from Jaxon Kohler and eight points from Jaden Akins.

Will Riley scored 16 of his 19 points in the first for Illinois (13-5, 5-3), but he went 1 of 5 for three points in the second half. Kylan Boswell had 13 pints and nine rebounds, but he committed a critical turnover with 5.9 seconds remaining when his no-look pass to Tomislav Ivišić went out of bounds before Holloman’s free throws.

The Spartans made Illinois star Kasparas Jakučionis a non-factor, limiting the freshman to three points on 1-for-3 shooting in just nine minutes. The 6-foot-6 Lithuanian fouled out with 6:39 left.

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Stop the star

Entering Sunday, Izzo’s big mission was to get his defense to stop Jakučionis. The Spartans found a way to do that: by placing the freshman phenom on the Illini bench.

MSU got Jakucionis in trouble early, with Jeremy Fears Jr. drawing the Illinois star’s second goal just 2:54 into the game and forcing coach Brad Underwood to quickly sit his star, who is entered averaging a team-leading 16.7 points with 5.4 rebounds and 5.4. assists.

This actually worked to the Illini’s advantage. Riley came off the bench with a red-hot shot, scoring in almost every way possible in his first 7 minutes, 40 seconds of stint replacing Jakučionis. The 6-foot-8 forward from Kitchner, Ont., scored 16 of 18 points in one stretch as Illinois built its lead to 10 points with 13:05 left in the half.

With the Spartans appearing to have issues, Izzo turned to his more athletic lineup and got good minutes and effort from Xavier Booker, Jaxon Kohler and Tre Holloman. This particular group, featuring Jaden Akins and Jeremy Fears Jr., clamped down defensively and closed the half 17-5 over the final 7:19, a sequence that began with a Booker 3-pointer and an acrobatic 3-pointer. three points. played by Akins. Kohler’s shot with 4 seconds left sent the two teams to the locker room tied 36-36.

Holloman led the way with 11 points in the first half, and the Spartans held Riley scoreless over the final 10:08 of the half after his explosion. But MSU struggled on the boards against Illinois, the nation’s best in rebounding margin, and on the defensive glass. The Illini’s 11 offensive rebounds didn’t prove problematic, however, as the Spartans limited them to just six second-chance points. MSU also outshot 25-17 overall and outscored 24-16 in the paint.

A tight finish

A back-and-forth in the opening minutes of the second half led to the same circumstances as the opening period for Illinois.

Jakučionis again came out of the game with foul trouble, collecting his third less than 2:30 in, then a fourth on a loose rebound with 16:34 to play. Only this time, Riley didn’t save the lost offense.

That allowed MSU to slowly take the lead, starting with a Fidler 3-pointer with 11:05 left that sparked an 18-9 run. The big moments came after Fears fouled Tre White on a 3-point attempt, and the Illinois guard made just 1 of three at the line. Akins grabbed the rebound on the third-down miss, took it to Fears to start the break, and the redshirt freshman tossed it to Carr for an alley-oop that made increase the energy and noise level of the Breslin Center. Then Fears slipped through traffic and made contact on a flying layup and finished the three-point play at the line, where MSU had some issues all day.

The other big offensive moment came when Fidler used his body control to elevate a jumper and caused Jakučionis to foul with 6:39 to play. The Illini guard had started to take over on his final 58-second stint after coming back with a three-point play and an assist before notching his fifth.

Back-to-back layups from Carr and Holloman made it 72-65 and prompted Underwood to call a timeout with 5:16 left, and it appeared the Illini coach had committed a critical technical foul with 3:18 left, giving MSU two points. points on Fidler’s free throws, but the coach said after the game that it was a technical bench test.

The Illini pulled within a point on a layup and free throw by Morez Johnson Jr. in the final two minutes, but Akins made a tough layup with 1:13 left. Illinois had one last chance and Boswell intentionally missed a free throw, but his follow-up shot with one second left was ruled illegal because it went off the backboard.

Fears threw the ball to Cooper 3/4 of the length of the court to run out the clock.

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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