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Published Mar 17, 2017
Spartans punch back, pound Miami
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Jim Comparoni  •  Spartans Illustrated
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TULSA, Okla. - Tom Izzo has had 47 wins in the NCAA Tournament, but he probably hasn’t one quite like the 78-58 victory over Miami, Friday night in the second round of the Midwest Region of the NCAA Tournament.

No. 9 seed Michigan State battled back from deficits of 10-0 and 17-5 to blow out No. 8 Miami.

Michigan State advances to play No. 1 seed Kansas on Sunday. Kansas beat California Davis, 100-62 on Friday.

Nick Ward scored a game-high 19 points on 8-of-9 shooting.

Miles Bridges scored 18 and Joshua Langford had 13 as Spartan freshmen weathered the Miami storm and notched an unlikely type of victory.

“We reacted like a bunch of freshmen, to be honest with you,” Izzo said. “Miami took it to us. But after the first seven or eight minutes, I think we played some of the best basketball we have played, not only this year but in a couple of years. We moved the ball well, we guarded, we took away things that are their strengths.

“Our whole mantra was to try to own the paint, keep them out of there.

“We did a pretty good job of that, and out-rebounded them and shot pretty well against a pretty good defensive team.”

Michigan State committed five turnovers in the first 7:55 in falling behind, 17-5. But MSU committed only three turnovers over the next 19 minutes in turning a 12-point deficit into a 51-32 lead, six minutes into the second half. That’s a 46-15 run and the type of turnaround that is unprecedented in the Izzo era, and rare by NCAA Tournament standards.

The closest thing to this for Izzo was the day he reached his first Final Four when the Spartans came back from an early 13-point deficit against Kentucky to beat the defending national champions in the 1999 regional finals in St. Louis.

On Friday night, when the Spartans began solving their early turnover problems, that’s when they started destroying the Hurricanes. That’s also when MSU’s defense started clamping down, the Spartans’ rebounding started taking over and MSU’s transition game took hold.

It resulted in a 46-15 run which allowed the Spartans to breeze through the second half.

“Once we stopped turning the ball over, that’s when our confidence went up,” Bridges said.

MSU shot 56.6 percent against a Miami defense which stifled MSU in the early going with a zone defense. But the Spartans began solving it at the other end with defense, rebounding and runout scoring.

MSU out-rebounded Miami 36-23.

Sunday's game will mark a meeting between the No. 6 and No. 7 all-time NCAA Tournament teams in terms of winning percentage.

"I'd like to keep it going for awhile," Izzo said. "Unfortunately, we have a buzz saw in front of us. But we've had that all year. Might as well have it one more time."


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