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Round II: No dice for MSUBlue drubs Spartans, inside and out |
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By John Leroi
Daily Sports Editor
Last week: in East Lansing.
Saturday: here.
Last week: good Michigan win.
Saturday: real good Michigan win.
Last week: for some wacky reason, the game didn't count toward the Big Ten standings.
Saturday: oh yeah, it counted.
Last week: Michigan State concentrated so much on the shooting prowess of one Louis Bullock that the Wolverines' trio of big men had a field day, combining for 44 points.
Saturday: Bullock scorched the Spartans for 22 points, courtesy of six 3-pointers, five in the first half.
Instead of a 13-point win like last week, No. 16 Michigan (6-3 Big Ten, 16-5 overall) played an inspired first half before cruising to an 85-65 victory over Michigan State (4-5, 11-7) on Saturday.
It was the Wolverines' second win in a week over their intrastate rival - and maybe this one was a little sweeter.
"We didn't quite play the way we wanted to last week," said Michigan center Robert Traylor, who celebrated his 20th birthday Saturday by scoring 16 points and grabbing eight boards. "Today we had it all going, inside and out, both ends of the floor."
Though the second half was good, the first was better for the Wolverines. Michigan State kept it close for the first five minutes of the game. The Spartans had a 10-6 lead after a lay-up by Antonio Smith at 4:37 of the first half.
But Michigan reeled off a 12-0 run to give itself an 18-10 lead. The two teams traded baskets for the next three minutes, with Michigan State guard Ray Weathers scoring the Spartans' next eight points and Travis Conlan netting eight of Michigan's next 10.
But it got worse for Michigan State after that. The Wolverines spent the last seven minutes of the half on a 20-4 run that made the halftime score 46-23 and pretty much ended things for the Spartans.
Bullock nailed all five of the threes he took in the first, including three in a 56-second span late in the half. Conlan got in on the act as well, hitting four of his six shots, including two threes, and dishing out five assists.
"You all just saw Michigan play a real good first half," Michigan coach Steve Fisher said. "I thought our offense was somewhat created by our defense. Maceo Baston started it as far I was concerned with his rebounding and Bullock got in one of his shooting frenzies where you knew he was going to make it every time he shot.
"Travis Conlan played about as good a game as he has for us since he's been at Michigan. I could go on and on like that."
But he didn't have to. Conlan was asked to step up after Michigan's third guard, Brandun Hughes, was suspended for the game by Fisher for an altercation in practice on Thursday.
That left the Wolverines with only two guards with any real experience. Conlan responded. He shot well in the first half and did a superb job of penetrating the Spartan defense in order to free up Bullock and to dump the ball in to Michigan's big men.
"Travis' aggressiveness really keyed the inside-outside game that we didn't have last week," Bullock said.
Conlan also led a defensive surge that limited the Spartans to 23 points in the first half, including four in the last 7:28. Other than Weathers, Michigan State was ineffective offensively. Smith, the league's leading rebounder, had six points, four off of offensive rebounds. No other Spartan had more than two points at the half.
The Wolverines held Michigan State to just 41 percent shooting in the half and the Spartans only made one of their five free throws. Michigan meanwhile, was a sizzling 62 percent from the field in the first, and an even toastier 64 percent from 3-point range.
Michigan cooled off a bit in the second, getting outscored by Michigan State, 42-39, while missing five of eight times from the free-throw line. But the Wolverines still shot 57 percent in the second half with a 23-point halftime lead, it really didn't matter.
"We were just outplayed in every aspect of the game except maybe rebounding," Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. "That's probably the most talented Michigan team I've seen in my years here."
SARA STILLMAN/Daily
Maceo Baston led a stingy Michigan defense, which held Michigan State's highly-touted freshman Mateen Cleaves to 6-of-15 shooting as the Wolverines coasted to a 20-point blowout.