EAST LANSING — Tyson Walker grimaced in pain. A.J. Hoggard got knocked to the court, slow to get up.
Already without Jeremy Fears Jr., already struggling to defend Indiana State’s sizzling outside shooting, Michigan State basketball was in a load of trouble midway through Saturday’s second half.
Yet the Spartans’ guards dug in and found the resiliency to recover. A tip from Jaden Akins. A driving layup by Tre Holloman. A three-point play off the glass by Hoggard. A smothering of the Sycamores around the 3-point arc on defense.
And Malik Hall helped finish off MSU’s comeback with nine of his 18 points in the final eight minutes to deliver a gritty 87-75 victory over the pesky Indiana State at Breslin Center in the Spartans’ final nonconference game of the season.
“Not very often do I beat a team that’s not a Power Five team and not only feel good but think that that win really helps us,” MSU coach Tom Izzo said. “Let me tell you, this will be a big-time win for us, because it was a very good team. And we played good enough for most of the game to feel good.”
Walker, who crashed into his own bench late in the first half going for a loose ball early in the second, finished with 22 points and five assists in 31 minutes. He also got pushed, shoved, and fouled hard all afternoon but went 10-for-10 at the free-throw line as the Spartans made 23 of 27 as a team.
Despite grabbing his right calf at one point after the tumble into Izzo and clutching at his right hip and lower back area for most of the second half, Walker insisted he was OK in the locker room afterward even though his coach said the senior guard suffered a rib injury.
Hoggard finished with 17 points with four assists, Akins had 13 points and Holloman added nine points, four rebounds, and three assists. Mady Sissoko had 12 rebounds, and Hall added eight.
MSU (8-5, 0-2) resumes Big Ten play Thursday at home against Penn State. Tipoff is 7 p.m., and the game will only be streamed online on Peacock. The Spartans have won four straight since dropping their back-to-back conference openers at home against Wisconsin and at Nebraska earlier this month.
Isaiah Swope scored 26 points and made six 3-pointers for the Sycamores (11-2), while Ryan Conwell added 16 points and Jayson Kent 12 before fouling out. Star sophomore big man Robbie Avila battled foul trouble all game, finishing with five points, six rebounds, two assists, three turnovers, and four fouls.
ISU finished 14-for-35 from 3-point range but did not make one in the final 11:29 and missed its last seven attempts from deep.
“We’ve got what it takes to be a championship team, but we got a long way to go,” Indiana State coach Josh Schertz said. “We have what it takes to compete at a high level. I told them, I think, this certainly is one of the 10 best teams in America. We played them on their home floor in front of a sellout (crowd) and in a great environment. And I didn’t think we put our best foot forward, and we were up five with 10½ minutes to play.”
New look
Fears, who was shot in the left thigh Dec. 23 in Illinois while at home for Christmas, returned to campus Friday and was on MSU’s bench for the game. He walked with crutches and acknowledged fans with handshakes before tipoff and got an ovation as he walked back to the locker room at halftime.
Izzo said determining any timeline about Fears’ future for this season remains a way off.
“There’s no sense even asking the question until at least six or eight weeks are up. … Everything that we know, now that we have him here, has been good,” Izzo said. “We missed him today. Loved him in the huddles a couple of times, loved him at halftime. We’re gonna miss that kid a lot.
“But it’ll be a while. He’s gotta heal, he’s gotta heal well. And this first week, we just gotta make sure he doesn’t get any infection in there.”
The Spartans started distributing Fears’ 15.3 minutes a game by bringing in Holloman as the first guard off the bench but keeping him in his usual rhythm initially by pairing him with Hoggard and sitting Walker, who was wearing a sleeve on his left arm.
Izzo rotated his guards, late in the first half using a lineup that had Walker, Holloman, and Akins with Coen Carr and Carson Cooper. Defensively, the Spartans were strong the entire half, turning 11 Sycamores turnovers into 17 points and getting six steals and three blocks by halftime.
But ISU stayed in the game from outside, hitting 8 of 18 from 3-point range, with Swope making four and scoring 14 points. The Spartans countered by attacking inside off the dribble frequently for a 22-4 edge on points in the paint.
“That was as well-coached and as good a team as we’ve played. And we’ve played a lot of good teams,” Izzo said. “They hit some shots that were tough. A couple times we broke down, but I thought we were pretty good defensively. They just made plays and made shots.”
MSU had two scary moments toward the end of the half, when Walker tumbled into his own bench and came up holding his right calf. Seconds later, Hoggard ran into Conwell at midcourt and fell to the ground, holding his right knee when he stood up.
“Tyson was hurt over half the game. He got knocked in the rib pretty good,” Izzo said. “I don’t know how that will be, it doesn’t seem to be broken. When he took the fall over my knee, if I wasn’t so mad at my team, I would have caught him. So I guess I’ll blame myself for that.”
As for Hoggard, Izzo said: “He’s from Philly. He’s not hurt.”
Both stayed in the game. Hoggard hit two free throws, then set up Walker for a 3-pointer to close the half on a 7-2 run that gave the Spartans a 44-34 lead.
Walker had 10 points at the break. Hoggard had nine points, two blocks and a steal. Akins also scored nine, while Cooper and Sissoko combined for nine rebounds. MSU turned nine offensive boards into a 13-0 second-chance scoring advantage at the break.
Halftime adjustments
Everything the Sycamores struggled with in the first half flipped, while their outside shooting got even better.
ISU opened the second half on a 17-7 run behind eight points from Conwell and a Swope 3-pointer, and a backdoor dunk from Kent that tied the game at 51 with 15:03 left. The Sycamores took their first lead of the second half on a 3-pointer by Julian Larry a little more than 30 seconds later.
Xavier Bledson hit another 3-pointer. Then Swope scored five straight, including his team’s final 3-pointer with 11:29 to play, to give Indiana State its biggest lead of the game, 64-59. All despite having three players, including Avila, with four fouls by the 11:50-mark.
“They defended and guard things well, and they were physical,” Hoggard said. “You would have thought it was a Big Ten game if you’re out there playing, just the way they were physical and blowing things up and just being aggressive.”
Akins’ tip and Holloman’s driving bucket pulled the Spartans back within a point. Then Hoggard dribbled into the paint, spun into contact, and scored off the glass while the whistle blew. That put MSU back up, 66-64, with 8:33 to play.
“That was big,” Hoggard said. “Jaden and Tre’s buckets during that stretch were definitely huge for us. And they got us rolling, they got us hyped, and we ran with it. We ran with the momentum after that.”
ISU tied it up again on a layup from Kent. But Hoggard delivered a diagonal skip pass to Hall in the left corner, and the senior forward drained a 3-pointer that gave the Spartans the lead for good.
Hall would score over Avila with 6:51 left to spark MSU’s 13-2 knockout run. That included a short jumper in the paint and a pump-fake into a driving dunk by Hall against the zone defense the Sycamores tried to use to counteract their foul problems.
“We’ve got a great, competitive will,” Schertz said. “We never let go of the rope, we never gave in, we fought from tip to buzzer. Guys were playing as hard as they possibly could.”
MSU finished with a 46-20 scoring edge in the paint for the game, outrebounded ISU, 41-27, and had a 21-9 edge in second-chance points.
With Fears out indefinitely, Hoggard played 32 minutes and 21 seconds, his most since getting 34 minutes in an overtime loss against James Madison in the first game of the season and just the senior point guard’s fourth time eclipsing 30 minutes this season. Akins played a season-high 34:13, and Holloman played 20:15.
Contact Chris Solari: [email protected]. Follow him @chrissolari.
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Next up: Nittany Lions
Matchup: Michigan State (8-5, 0-2 Big Ten) vs. Penn State (7-6, 1-1).
Tipoff: 7 p.m. Thursday; Breslin Center, East Lansing.
TV/radio: Peacock (streaming only); WJR-AM (760).
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