MADISON, WI – There wouldn’t be a dramatic comeback this time. No heroics or villainy from Jeremy Fears Jr., either.
Tom Izzo watched his Michigan State basketball team absorb a one-sided, start-to-finish throttling at the hands of red-hot Wisconsin. And the 10th-ranked Spartans saw their chances to repeat as Big Ten champions all but vanish with lapses in both their offense and defense.
Wisconsin’s Nick Boyd scored 29 as the Badgers demolished MSU, 92-71, on Friday, Feb. 13, at Kohl Center. They did so in overwhelming fashion in every facet.
Draining 3-pointers. Punishing the paint. Gobbling up offensive rebounds and scoring second-chance points. Smothering and swatting the Spartans (20-5, 10-4 Big Ten), who lost for the third time in their last four games.
Allowing the Kohl Center crowd to serenade Izzo and his players with “overrated” chants as Wisconsin’s lead swelled to as many 24 points midway through the second half – MSU’s largest deficit of the season – and stayed that way for the rest of the night.
It was the most points surrendered by MSU to a Big Ten opponent since Iowa’s 112-106 overtime win on Feb. 25, 2023. And when it ended, the Badgers’ fans stormed the court, just like Minnesota fans did nine days earlier in Minneapolis.
Coen Carr scored 19 points on 6-for-10 shooting. Fears had 14 points and 12 assists but was just 3-for-12 from the floor in 32 minutes. Kur Teng scored 12 points and Jordan Scott had 11, but those two combined to go 7-for-25 as the Spartans shot 36.4% overall and 8-for-27 from 3-point range.
Jaxon Kohler went scoreless in the first half and scored just five points in the second half, with just one of his seven rebounds after halftime. The Spartans were outscored in the paint, 28-14, and the Badgers finished an even 38-38 on the boards. Carson Cooper scored just six points and battled foul trouble all night, and MSU made just 1 of 7 layup attempts in the game.
Boyd was 10-for-17 from the field and 5-for-7 from 3-point range as Wisconsin went 15-for-35 from deep. Bloomfield Hills native and Birmingham Brother Rice grad John Blackwell added 24 points including four 3s for the Badgers (18-7, 10-4), who have won nine of their last 11. They also turned nine MSU turnovers into 21 points.
Same struggles
All of the Spartans’ biggest issues of late came to the fore immediately.
Wisconsin opened the game 5-for-5 from the 3-point arc and buried 10 in the first half as MSU’s ongoing problems defending the arc continued. The Spartans’ previous 12 opponents were making 31.1% but hitting 8.4 of their 27.1 attempts from deep in those games.
Six different Badgers hit 3s in the opening half, including 4-of-5 from Boyd. The 6-foot-3 transfer guard from Florida Atlantic and San Diego State didn’t limit himself to outside shooting either, getting downhill against MSU’s guards and scoring over the big men in the paint. Boyd had 20 points at halftime on 8-for-12 shooting. That included a bomb from well behind the arc on a turnover on an inbound pass by Fears with 1:27 left to send Wisconsin into the locker room with a 51-34 lead.
The Badgers had 13 points off six Spartan giveaways, an 18-4 scoring edge in the paint and 11 second-chance points on five offensive boards while evening the rebounding margin 19-19 at the break.
MSU trailed by as many as 18 in the half, equaling the season-worst deficit it had against No. 2 Michigan on Jan. 30. It was the fifth straight game the Spartans found themselves in a significant hole – by 12 at Rutgers, by 16 at Minnesota and by nine against No. 7 Illinois on Saturday.
Missing parts
All season, Izzo has relied on his core four: Fears, Carr, Kohler and Cooper. But the Badgers rendered the Spartans to a one-cylinder engine, with Carr scoring their first seven points and having 11 points and six rebounds at halftime.
Kohler got neutralized by Wisconsin’s size, between persistent double-teams when he’d touch the ball in the post to constant hands in his face and quick closeouts along the arc. The 6-9 senior missed both of his first-half shots, grabbing six rebounds but also committing two turnovers. One came immediately after one of his three offensive boards.
After halftime, Kohler hit his first basket with 16:11 to play, a jumper from the left wing, then followed it with a 3-pointer. But those buckets were fleeting, and Kohler grabbed just one rebound in the second half. He also was called for a hook-and-hold flagrant foul after a review with 5:40 to play and the Spartans’ comeback chances already gone.
Cooper was 2-for-5 in the opening half, but he struggled to establish position on the low block at either end of the floor before picking up his second foul and sitting the final 3:48 of the first half and then getting called for his third early in the second period and fourth with a little more than 10 minutes to play. Both big men, along with Carr, continued to have issues defending the 3-point arc on ball screens.
Fears, meantime, was not the same fluid player he showed for much of the past month. He was 1-for-9 to start the game before getting a few buckets after the Spartans fell behind by as many as 21 points in the second half. At the other end, Fears struggled to stick with Boyd and Blackwell after Izzo challenged him going into the game to step up his defensive play.
What’s next for MSU
The Spartans return to Breslin Center for a two-game homestand beginning against UCLA on Tuesday (8:30 p.m., Peacock). The Bruins (17-7, 9-4) start their Michigan two-step against No. 2 Michigan at Crisler Center in Ann Arbor on Saturday (12:45 p.m., CBS), then head to East Lansing with former MSU big man Xavier Booker. Booker transferred after the Spartans won the Big Ten title and advanced to the Elite Eight last March. MSU then hosts Ohio State at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 22 (CBS) before hitting the road to Indiana to face Purdue (Feb. 26) and Indiana (March 1). The Spartans’ last home game is March 5 against Rutgers before closing the regular season at U-M on March 8.
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Spartans buried beyond the arc by Wisconsin