EAST LAUNCH – After shooting poorly, regularly darkening and playing sloppily with the ball, the state of Michigan still has a chance at its second victory over a top-five opponent in a span of three days.
It ended the match with a mostly sharp last two minutes to complete a beautiful six-day team.
The Spartans returned from nine points in the second half in Breslin Center on Thursday night to beat No. 4 Ohio State, 71-67.
After traveling to Indiana last week with a record of one game above .500, the Spartans have now tied three consecutive wins to give themselves a clear path to the 23rd consecutive NCAA Tournament.
The Spartans (13-9, 7-9) came fresh to the 5th Illinois in Breslin center again on Thursday.
They repeated the magic by climbing back from nine points in the second half to put the game on a basket from Marcus Bingham Jr. with 6:37 left, immediately after a block on the other side.
Ohio State (18-6, 12-6) then fell four points, but Spartans forward Joey Hauser continued his recent clutch shot by tapping a 3-pointer from a timeout, with 4 : 25 left to drop his team. by one.
The Spartans took the lead with 2:32 on some free throws from Malik Hall, and Aaron Henry and Joshua Langford added a pickup to widen the lead.
Defensively, the Spartans forced Buckeyes to seal the game seven times missing.
Henry continues his dominating recent game with an 18-point performance on 7-for-11 shooting. Gabe Brown scored 11 points as the only other double-digit scorer in Michigan State.
Compared to the team’s Tuesday victory over Illinois, an almost win-by-win, the Spartans on Thursday overcame much more unequal play. Two of their best players put in significant pieces in the first half due to bad issues. They missed 13 of 14 shots in one piece while playing their second game in three days on a shortened rotation. Starting point guard Rocket Watts started the game 1-for-10.
Langford picked up the last 9:18 of the first half because the problem was bad, and Henry went to the bank for the same reason at 6:15.
Without their two best players of the past two games, the Spartans have gone down by half to five to one. A 0-for-6 half from Rocket Watts does not help.
Despite that, plus nine times and 11 offenses in the first half, the Spartans lost only five times at halftime.
After seeing the deficit rise to nine, the Spartans fought back to complete their beautiful week.
Michigan State continues its season-ending six games within 13 days by traveling to Maryland on Sunday.