What injury? Freshman leads Michigan State past Colorado in Maui Invitational opener

So much for Jase Richardson’s sprained left ankle.

Less than a week after rolling it late in a game and being helped off the court, he led Michigan State on it.

The freshman guard came off the bench to score a career-high 13 points as the Spartans rolled to a 72-56 win against Colorado on Monday in the opening around of the Maui Invitational at the Lahaina Civic Center.

In the first tournament setting of the season, Michigan State overcame another miserable shooting performance beyond the arc (2-for-21) with a deep rotation, explosive transition game and active defense.

The Spartans (5-1) will play their second of three games in three days on Tuesday (6 p.m., ESPN) in a semifinal against Memphis (5-0), which survived a late rally to knock off No. 2 UConn 99-97 in overtime earlier Monday. The other half of the bracket features No. 4 Auburn, No. 5 Iowa State, No. 12 North Carolina and Dayton, who are all playing later Monday night.

Richardson made six of eight field goals and was one of 10 different scorers for the Spartans, whose bench outscored the Buffaloes 40-13. Frankie Fidler scored nine, Jeremy Fears had eight and six assists and Coen Carr had eight points.

Julian Hammond led Colorado with a game-high 15 points while Elijah Malone scored 14.

Any concerns about Richardson’s mobility after suffering a sprained ankle late in last week’s 83-75 win against Samford were quickly erased. He checked in less than four minutes into the game and immediately got in the paint for a basket. Richardson shot 4-for-4 from the floor in the first half and Carr made all three of his shot attempts as the two combined for 14 of Michigan State’s 23 bench points in the opening 20 minutes.

That helped make up for the awful 3-point shooting that has plagued the Spartans so far this season. They entered Monday’s game ranked 352nd out of 355 teams in the nation from beyond the arc at just 22.1 percent and picked up where they left off. Michigan State shot 50 percent (15-for-30) from the floor in the opening half despite missing all nine 3-point attempts.

After the teams traded baskets and slim leads, the Spartans closed the half on a 17-4 run. Colorado went scoreless for more than five minutes and missed 10 straight shots at one point before going into halftime trailing 38-25.

Coming out of the locker room, the Buffaloes put together an 8-2 run with a pair of triples from Hammond but three quick turnovers prevented them from further shrinking the deficit. After Michigan State missed its first 14 triple tries, Richardson knocked one down a little more than six minutes into the second half to reestablish a double-digit advantage. The Spartans cruised down the stretch to secure a spot in the semifinals.