INDIANAPOLIS — Everyone will want to talk about the dunks. Both of ’em. Malik Hall threw one down off a baseline inbound to send Michigan State to overtime against Kentucky. There was a second helping at the end of OT, extending the game another five minutes. The two added up to one massive early season win for the Spartans, who knocked off the fourth-ranked Wildcats 86-77 Tuesday in the Champions Classic.
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But let’s go further back.
The clock read 1:21 left in regulation when a bobbled ball careened out of bounds. Officials awarded the ball to Kentucky. A stoppage sent both teams to their benches as referees reviewed the play. Michigan State, trailing 61-58, talked through the upcoming defensive possession. Then, just before the end of the timeout, it briefly reviewed what to do on offense, just in case the call was reversed.
The horn blared. Wouldn’t you know, Michigan State ball.
So point guard Tyson Walker brought the ball up the floor for the Spartans. Mady Sissoko set a screen for Joey Hauser. Hauser peeled off, knocked down a jumper. One-point game.
Simple stuff, really. A play executed how it was drawn up.
On the other end, a Kentucky offensive set amounted to an entry pass to Oscar Tshiebwe about 15 feet from the basket and a contested jumper. He missed.
The sequence set up the end of regulation: Kentucky’s Cason Wallace going 1-for-2 from the free-throw line, Michigan State drawing up a masterful inbound to Hall, who slipped by a dozing Tshiebwe for an uncontested dunk to tie it.
🚨 OT IN INDY
Malik Hall ties it for @MSU_Basketball 🔥
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) November 16, 2022
The two five-minute extra sessions that followed produced more of the same. Michigan State executing, Kentucky not. The Spartans made 5 of 13 shots with no turnovers in those two extra periods. The Cats went 4-for-12 with five turnovers. Ballgame.
“I just saw Tom (Izzo) in the hallway and I said, ‘You were more prepared to finish than we were,’” Kentucky coach John Calipari said.
Give Cal credit. He says it like it is.
While it’s unwise to draw sweeping conclusions from Champions Classic results, one unmitigated fact to be drawn from Tuesday night is that the team coached by Izzo was clear-eyed and clinical when it mattered most, while the team coached by Calipari looked in those moments like a knockabout group figuring it out as it went along.
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Most years, such a contrast could be owed to Kentucky’s novel youth. But this isn’t some daddy day care version of the Cats. On Tuesday, Calipari started one senior, two juniors and two freshmen; brought Tshiebwe, a senior and defending national player of the year, off the bench; and counted two more seniors and a sophomore among his remaining reserves.
Four of those Cats — Wallace, Chris Livingston, Tshiebwe and Jacob Toppin — are projected to go in the 2023 NBA Draft.
All told, Kentucky’s average years of Division I experience on the roster is 2.04, per KenPom, ranking 139th nationally.
Michigan State? Izzo is fielding a team that, for all intents and purposes, is running it back from a 2021-22 season that produced a seventh-place finish in the Big Ten and a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament. He has, essentially, a six-man rotation.
AJ Hoggard and Walker form a nice backcourt. Hall is a really solid Big Ten wing/forward. Hauser has grown through some struggles and come out as a high-level shooter and steady presence. Sissoko is a 6-foot-9 center who averaged 1.1 points in 4.5 minutes per game last season and has emerged from nowhere as a breakout junior. Jaden Akins is an athletic, attacking guard off the bench. The remainder of the reserves include two freshmen, a sophomore and a would-be walk-on who’s been awarded a scholarship.
Michigan State’s average experience is 2.24 years, ranking 109th, per KenPom.
On the way to Tuesday’s win, those pieces simply defended when it mattered and dialed up plays that seemed obvious — like running Hauser off screen after screen after screen for open looks — but worked, nonetheless. Hauser finished with a game-high 23 points.
Izzo has always done things his way, and this year fits the script. He could’ve raided the transfer portal and loaded up MSU’s empty lockers. The program has multiple open scholarships. But he didn’t. Could it bite Michigan State if any injuries emerge? Sure, but for now, Izzo and the Spartans proved they can do more with less because they know what they’re doing. That starts at the top.
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“Program win,” Izzo said of Tuesday’s victory.
It meant a lot, that was clear. Shortly after the final horn, MSU players came fire-snorting through the back hallways of Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Yelling. Screaming. Piggybacking. You’d have thought they were off the Final Four.
It wasn’t just the dramatic finish. Tuesday was only the second time since 2016 that Michigan State was leaving the Champions Classic with a win. The lack of success has been tough to stomach, as Izzo has long held the Spartans’ place in this event as an ultimate token of what he’s turned Michigan State into. The program keeps company with Duke, Kentucky and Kansas. That says something. At the same time, you have to measure your height in wins.
Make no mistake, this win over Kentucky — despite being in mid-November, well removed from the winter months that will roll out — will be felt internally as validation.
More with less. Michigan State’s OK with that. There are other equalizers.
Just ask Walker. The Northeastern transfer is in his second season and is the closest thing this team has to a pilot. He credited the win over Kentucky to “preparation and execution.”
The final play in the first overtime, for instance. Michigan State trailed by two, 71-69, with 7.6 seconds left after a 1-for-2 trip to the free-throw line by Wallace. Typically in late-game situations, Izzo will have a guard advance the ball past half court, then call timeout to draw up a play off a sideline inbound. This time, Izzo called timeout after the made free throw, intentionally wanting to run a full-court set.
In that huddle, the plan went without saying.
“We go over every scenario in practice until we run it to a T,” Walker said. “We don’t even need to draw it up. We just know what we’re doing.”
Walker, the inbounder, passed the ball across the baseline to Hoggard, a secondary inbounder. Then Walker sprinted, caught a screen and reeled in a return pass from Hoggard. A flea-flicker on the hardwood.
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Walker, head on a swivel, raced down the floor toward a scrambling Kentucky defense.
“We knew we would get them because of how hard they overplay,” Walker said. “With me running full speed, we knew we could get ’em like that. So that’s what we did.”
Walker to Hall. Hall to the rim. Dunk.
They say it’s always nice when a plan comes together. But it’s often not a coincidence.
(Photo of Tom Izzo talking with Mady Sissoko: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
