Michigan State suffers another close loss in final regular season game vs. Indiana, 65-64

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – One shot after another missed the mark, clanging off the rim and banging off the backboard.

One Michigan State basketball player after another tumbled to the floor, losing their footing – figuratively and literally – on offense and defense.

One rebound after another went to Indiana, the Spartans getting outpositioned, outmuscled and outhustled.

It could not have been a worse start for Tom Izzo’s team in its last regular-season game. After all, he pointed to this road trip against the Hoosiers as the start of “tournament time” for MSU. Only the Spartans didn’t get started Sunday until they found themselves down 16 points a little more than 12 minutes into the game.

That woke them up. And those same shots started dropping. A 33-10 comeback run between the end of the first half and the start of the second flipped it into a seven-point lead.

Only to watch it all slip away in the end.

Tyson Walker scored 20 of his 30 points in a furious second-half rally, but the senior missed a driving layup with 6 seconds left and Indiana tipped the ball out to escape with a 65-64 victory at Assembly Hall.

MSU (18-13, 10-10 Big Ten) opens Big Ten tournament play Thursday as the No. 8 seed, drawing the No. 9 seed in the noon game that day at Target Center (streaming on Peacock). That winner gets the dubious task of facing No. 1 seed Purdue on Friday.

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Kel’el Ware scored 19 of his 28 points in the second half, including splitting a pair of free throws with 17.8 seconds to play, to give Indiana (18-13, 10-10) its final lead in a game filled with three lead changes and four ties in the final half.

Ware added 12 rebounds, while Malik Reneau scored 16 points with five boards and five assists and Mackenzie Mgbako added 13 points.

Jaden Akins and A.J. Hoggard each had 10 points and Malik Hall added seven, but they combined to go 11-for-33 from the floor. Walker was 11-for-21 as the Spartans shot 38.5% overall and went 8-for-25 from 3-point range.  Hall had seven rebounds, while Hoggard had six assists.

Worst start imaginable

Things could not have started much worse for MSU at both ends of the court.

Xavier Booker got his second start in the last four games, and it was evident from the outset that facing Indiana’s young and talented frontcourt was a bad matchup for the Spartans’ freshman. He missed rebounding opportunities and struggled defensively as the Hoosiers attacked him inside and pounded the boards.

That also coincided with a brutal start on offense in which MSU missed 12 of its first 14 shots. Indiana opened 8-of-14 from the field and spaced things out by going 4-for-5 from 3-point range in the first 6:46 to build a 20-5 lead.

The Hoosiers’ lead swelled to 16 on a Ware banked-in jumper from the paint with 7:53 to go. But Mady Sissoko threw down a dunk after a lob entry pass from Hoggard that jumpstarted the Spartans’ comeback run as their defense began to finally began to disrupt Indiana’s offensive rhythm.

After that hot start, the Hoosiers finished 5-for-17 and committed all nine of their first-half turnovers in the final 12:35. MSU fought back from a 16-point hole with a 19-8 run in the last 7:28 to trail 34-29 at half.

Walker, who missed his first three shots, started to heat up after a driving layup turned into a three-point play with 8:35 left. He would hit two more jumpers after Sissoko’s dunk, then buried a 3-pointer with a minute left before half. Hall’s tip-in with 9 seconds left helped the Spartans close the half on a 19-8 surge in the final 7:28 to pull within 34-29 at the break.

After opening the game 3-for-20, the Spartans made nine of their final 12 attempts. Walker had 10 points at the break, while Hoggard hit both of his 3-point tries as the rest of his teammates were 1-for-8.

Indiana got 29 points and 15 rebounds from its inside trio of Ware, Reneau and Mgbako in the first half. The Hoosiers had a dominating 24-15 advantage on the boards.

Too little too late

That momentum carried over into the second half, with MSU coming out of the locker room with a Walker-fueled 14-2 burst to take the lead.

On one trip, Akins got three 3-point attempts and finally buried his third. He connected with another on the next trip, then Walker hit his second of the half to force Indiana coach Mike Woodson to call timeout 4:02 into the half. Out of that, Hoggard drove and dropped a floater after exceptional perimeter ball movement from Akins and Walker. MSU found itself up 43-36 with 15:24 to play.

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But Indiana again began to take the ball inside to exploit the Spartans in the paint. Ware and Reneau combined for 14 straight Hoosier points, while Walker had eight of the Spartans’ 10 in that stretch. But an 8-0 Indiana run, with back-to-back 3-pointers from Mgbako over Hoggard and another from Xavier Johnson, gave Indiana back the lead and set up a back-and-forth finish over the last eight-plus minutes.

The two teams traded buckets and leads from there, with a Carson Cooper put-back dunk after Johnson’s 3-pointer giving MSU some juice back. Walker hit a pair of free throws with 2:10 left, but Ware answered with a layup through a foul but missed the free throw. Then Walker landed another counter punch to tie it up at 64-all with a driving layup around ware with 1:29 to play.

MSU had a chance to take the lead after that, but Walker missed a layup and Cooper’s put-back attempt banged off the rim and got knocked out. Ware posted up Hall and drew a foul with 17.8 left, missing the first but hitting the second.

With 14.5 left, after an MSU timeout, Walker drove right. His shot missed, then got knocked away to midcourt, where the Hoosiers gathered it up and raced downcourt to run out the clock.

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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