Michigan State went to College Park Sunday looking for its first win in a true road game on the season, and managed to do just enough down the stretch to make it happen against Maryland.

The Spartans used a strong first-half performance to give fans the idea the team would coast to victory on a double-digit lead. Instead, break downs on offense and defense let the Terps outscore MSU 27-17 in the second half and almost get the win.

"Give a lot of credit to Maryland, that second half," Spartan head coach Tom Izzo said after the game. "I guess I give a lot of credit to us the first half. We played probably one of our best halves of basketball, both offensively and defensively. And the second half, I think they turned up their defense and they really gave us some fits and we did not handle it very well."

The Spartans 61-59 victory spoiled Maryland's celebration of former Hall of Fame Head Coach Lefty Driesell who was honored by the Terps at halftime along with special throwback jerseys worn by the team against MSU.

"It is an honor and a privilege to be here on this day with Lefty," Izzo said. "Seeing Albert King, and some guys that I you know, Len Elmore, Gary Williams, some guys that came up to me to say hello. Believe it or not, that was not only classy, but the the tradition here is off the charts, and and I think that they're going to get it back."

UMD earned bids to eight NCAA Tournaments, won the 1972 NIT Championship title, won the 1984 ACC Tournament Championship, and posted a pair of ACC Regular Season titles under Driesell.

Despite Driesell being in College Park back in the Terps' ACC days, though, Izzo thought the game on Sunday was a more reminiscent throwback to his early days as a head coach in the Big Ten before Maryland was a member.

"I'm telling you, that was the most physical team we played," Izzo said of Maryland. "That was a physical, an old fashioned 90s, 2000 Big Ten game. I thought there was some grabbing and holding both ways. I thought there were cutouts that people were flying. I thought that was a very physical game."

Indeed, MSU saw multiple players get banged up in that one, including Jaden Akins late in the first half and later A.J. Hoggard. The Spartans had to end the first half with Akins riding the bench after what seemed to be an ankle injury in a scrum, and the Terrapins pressed their advantage to trim the Spartans lead down to single digits before MSU rallied and brought it back to double digits heading into the locker room.

Later, Hoggard scored six of his 12 points on the day in the final 7:15 of the game, including back-to-back buckets to retake the lead for MSU after UMD had seized a narrow advantage back with 8:26 remaining.

"Jaden got his ankle rolled and tried to bounce back," Izzo said. "I think Jaden Akins hurt, hurt us a little bit . . . A.J., I don't know what happened, and I don't even ask A.J. He's tough enough. So I ain’t worried about A.J., but he made a couple of big plays too."

That first half run by the Spartans offensively, though, was powered by both Malik Hall and a strong fast break game.

"When we had our run game going, we looked like our teams of old," Izzo lauded following the win. "We didn't turn the ball over. That was big. We created some turnovers, that was big."

Michigan State scored 14 points off the fast break in the first half, though it didn't score any in the second. MSU also finished the game with 19 points off UMD turnovers and had nine steals. Maryland, meanwhile, finished the game with just three points off of fast break scores and seven off Spartan turnovers.

Hall had a big game as well. He finished the first half with 10 points on 4-for-6 shooting from the field, and grabbed three boards as well.

"I was really proud of Malik because, I'll be honest with you, he started out so good and he was the best player on the floor if you ask me," Izzo praised of Hall's performance. "And then the start of the second half, he was terrible. And I told him that three times and he accepted all four of them. I think he picked up one on himself and that, for those of you that know us, it made me feel good. He didn't hang his head. He didn't do anything. He was totally engaged."

Hall only scored two points in the second half, both from the free throw line. He went 0-for-3 from the floor and had two turnovers alongside three boards.

Hall wasn't the only player who struggled in the second half, though. As mentioned, the entire team broke down both offensively and defensively in the second half as Maryland was able to storm back. The Spartans went 0-for-15 at one point from the field, in fact.

"I mean, we still have a tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot on some things," Izzo grumbled after the win. "And I thought poor shot selection was one of them . . . we went to the hole a couple other times and they just snuffed us. We took some bad shots . . . But it does say a lot about [my] team to bounce back, when an [opponent] comes back like that, the place was hopping. I think we needed to take one of those steps in a game. We really needed that. I think it will really help us . . .

"It's going to help to win a game like this. If we’d won by 20 because of the way we were playing early, maybe it would have been worse, but we had to come back. They took the lead, so we showed a little grit."

Indeed, MSU struggled shooting not just from missed shots, but also from poor shot selection on attempts. UMD notched five blocks in the final 9:34 of the game alone from poor choices by the Spartans.

"Boy that first half, we really made some shots," Izzo said. "The second half I thought we took bad shots, and we haven't had that happen very often. I told my team in the locker room, ‘Now you know what we mean by taking some bad shots and trying to do it all on your own.’ I think Jaden had a thing, Malik had one or two down low. AJ Did. I mean, I bet you there were eight shots that I would consider poor shots. And we don't normally take a lot of bad shots."

Down the second half stretch, even characteristically reliable Walker struggled with shooting at time. Walker finished the second half just 3-for-9 from the floor, and the game overall just 5-for-14 from the field.

"I thought Tyson should have pulled up a few times," Izzo said of Walker's passing on shot opportunities in the game as well. "I thought we did a poor job as a staff, poor job, and poor job as players. When Tyson Walker goes that many minutes without a shot, again, you know, it's happened a couple of times. And he said in the locker room that he felt he kind of disappeared. What's so important to me is players are taking blame for things. And that is really important, and I really appreciate that.

"We didn't do a good job getting him the right calls and he probably didn't do a good job responding. So when it was money time, we went to him and he made a couple of big plays. I thought that last one was in that he shot and then, you know, you got to give a little credit to Trey Holloman, too, because defensively I thought he made some shots early and defensively he was really good late."

Walker did hit a step back 3-pointer with just :44 left in the game to give MSU the advantage it needed for the win. The Spartans took a 61-57 lead after UMD's Jahmir Young had cut the deficit to just one point with 1:13 left. Coming out of an MSU timeout with :18 left, though, Walker was tightly guarded eventually forced a jumper that missed.

Trey Holloman came up big on the defensive end. Holloman came up with the game winning steal when he knocked the ball loose from Young and it rolled out of bounds as time expired. That play helped ensure Michigan State earned its first true road win of the season.

"We have struggled some on the road," Izzo admitted after the game. "We played a pretty good game if you really looked at it at Nebraska and lost. We sucked at Northwestern. I can't come up with a better word that I could legally say, so that's the best word I'll use. It's been some tough games. Illinois, I mean, I think people get caught up in that.

"I think it helps us to win a road game, because when I say you all, the media, the Twitter, the other idiots, and the fans, they all make a narrative that is bigger than the one. We didn't harp on that. We just said we've got to get some road wins. But we didn't harp like we're afraid to play on the road."

MSU will look to build on that success with another tough road game looming ahead. The Spartans head to Madison next to take on the Wisconsin Badgers on Friday. Despite the struggles in the second half, Izzo struck an upbeat attitude about the things he finds important in his teams being on display Sunday in College Park.

"All in all, I wouldn't be normally satisfied except right now we needed a road win," Izzo said. "But other than that five minute stretch that almost cost us the game, I thought we were very focused. We were very good in huddles. Those things are encouraging to me as we move on now and go to Wisconsin next week. Those are important . . .

"And being in it 39 years, you kind of realize that ugly win is much better than a pretty loss and it was an ugly win, and they deserve some credit for making it ugly."

Michigan State will next look for a win, ugly or not, Friday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time when it visits Wisconsin.

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