A new best-win-of-the-season just dropped!

Despite playing poorly on both ends for much of the game, the Spartans found a way to beat Chris Beard and his rock-solid Mississippi team on Friday night.

Like the New Mexico win before it, the Spartans had to beat an incredibly tough, physical, locked-in team that had a bona fide sniper playing great basketball, and role players starring in their roles all over the court.

Despite trailing for most of the game, however, the Spartans held their nerve and found a way to make more plays than their opponent. This wasn't Mississippi fumbling a win away. It was the Spartans making one more play than their opponents over multiple, consecutive three-minute mini-games down the stretch in the final 12 minutes -- a final 12 minutes that saw the Spartans execute nearly flawlessly to the tune of 11-14 shooting from the field, 11-12 from the free throw line, and a perfect 6-6 from the free-throw line in the final in the final 30 seconds.

Chris Beard's game plan - and jedi-mind tricks - nearly worked a second time against Tom Izzo. He baited Izzo into going small against his under-sized team, while amending his offensive approach by dramatically slowing the pace of the game down to a mere 64 possessions, where Mississippi played a 68-possession game against Iowa State, a 70-possession game against North Carolina, and a 75-possession game against Arkansas in their SEC-tournament opening win.

This, combined with some uncharacteristic first-half turnovers nearly won them the game.

Against better teams this season, Mississippi ONLY stood a chance when they forced turnovers, hit three-point shots, and slowed the game down, but that slower pace opened up a vulnerability on the glass for them that only their opponents could neutralize (Bill Russell was unavailable for Mississippi all season).

In their SEC-tournament loss to Auburn (a 64 possession game), Mississippi was able to force 15 turnovers, but conceded 10 offensive rebounds (32% offensive rebounding rate for Auburn), so it was a great surprise to me to see the Spartans start the game small, and never once try a two-big line-up.

In a first half where the Spartans were turning it over at a high rate, they needed extra possessions in such a low-possession game, but by playing small they took away their own ability to effectively crash the offensive glass.

Izzo and the staff were clearly worried about the three-point line more than anything and, by and large, the Spartans defended it well (the late-prayer three from Murrell as time expired took the Mississippi 3pt performance from 8-26 (30%) to 9-27 (33%)).

But that was a huge gamble by the staff -- for it to pay off, the new starter would need to have a huge impact and the Spartans needed to find efficient scoring when they weren't turning it over.

Check and ... check.