INDIANAPOLIS – If you’re looking for reasons why Michigan State’s men’s basketball team might be built for single-elimination-tournament basketball, we saw it Friday in the top-seeded Spartans’ 74-64 win over Oregon in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals.
“Strength in numbers” was a lot more than a slogan again.
It was Jaxon Kohler and Coen Carr hitting first-half 3-pointers when Jase Richardson couldn’t get anything to fall. It was point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. playing one of his best halves of the season when Tre Holloman wasn’t on his game. And then Holloman finding his game when Fears struggled after halftime. It was the timely, collective quick passing for a bucket to keep an opponent at bay — Kohler backdoor to a cutting Fears to a slashing Carr for a dunk just when it was most needed with a few minutes left.
This is how you survive and advance — by having enough capable options and trust among teammates that you’ll find the right answers on a night when things aren’t perfect. Because the Spartans have that, in this tournament, they’ll play either 4-seed UCLA or 5-seed Wisconsin at 1 p.m. Saturday in the semifinals.
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One of the reasons MSU has won 27 games already this season is this this mix of options and matchups. It sometimes takes a minute for the coaches to find the players and combinations that have it in a given game, but they usually get there. And sometimes it evolves from half to half.
We saw Friday why this MSU team has a shot to still be playing in three weeks. Because against the other hottest team in the Big Ten, on an afternoon when it took Richardson and Holloman a while to get going and Jaden Akins missed two-thirds of his shots, the Spartans won rather comfortably.
That should make folks more comfortable about what’s ahead.
2. Richardson had an important day on a day he struggled
Jase Richardson finished with 17 points and didn’t shoot well at all — 4-for-13 from the floor (3-for-7 from 3), 6-for-10 from the line. That’s a good sign. Because it shows Richardson is continuing to recognize his leading role on this team. The important number for the freshman on an off night is the totals. Because this is a guy who halfway through the Big Ten season hadn’t taken more than eight shots in a single game.
That’s not what MSU needs from Richardson now. The Spartans need him to hunt good shots and stay aggressive. He’s their guy. They’re going to ride him for 13-plus shots a game as far as they can, make or miss.
3. Coen Carr coming to a poster on a wall near you
One of these days, Coen Carr is going to dunk on someone something awful and it’s going to be the most viral clip in the history of basketball.
He tried a couple of times Friday — twice taking off from a long ways out and over a defender, trying to throw it down. The second time, which drew a foul with MSU ahead 54-43 and taking control, drew smiles from Carr and his teammates. They recognized the ridiculousness of what he was trying to do — and that for him it’s not all that ridiculous.
Carr had his best overall game since his 14 points eight rebounds against Rutgers in January — even on a day he missed most of his dunks, including an open alley-oop. Sure, he buried an open 3-pointer without hesitation and finished with 10 points. But the games when Carr is the biggest difference-maker is when he rebounds like this and hits his free throws. He hauled in eight boards, three memorably on the offensive end — including one for a putback off a missed 3 and another on a missed front end of a one-and-one free throw by a teammate, drawing his own foul and then knocking in both free throws. He made 3 of 4 shots at the line Friday. He also had two steals.
Carr is the sort of athlete who changes who the Spartans are athletically. He’s become a complete enough player for that athleticism to take hold. And when he’s rebounding like he did Friday, he’s a bear to deal with.
Contact Graham Couch at [email protected]. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.
