Michigan State basketball got NCAA Tournament-like test from Samford

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Michigan State basketball got off to a slow start. OK, now that everyone has collectively stopped me, I don’t think I can truly put into words how slow Tuesday’s start was for the Spartans against a really good Samford team.

The Spartans held on to win 83-75 in what turned into a shootout in East Lansing.

So just how bad was this slow start by the Spartans? Well, they began the game 0-for-9 from 3-point range (shocker, I know) and found themselves down 21-8 in the first part of the first half. It looked like everything that could go wrong, did.

Michigan State went on one of the best runs I’ve seen in some time, taking a 38-28 lead into the half despite trailing by 13 points just minutes earlier. They went on a 30-7 run in the final minutes of the half to take control of the game and all they had to do in the second half was maintain it. And the Spartans did that despite getting some pushback from the Bulldogs.

It felt like every Michigan State bucket was met with a Samford bucket or free throws. It was a true back-and-forth second half that Samford ended up winning by two. Thankfully, Michigan State built a strong enough lead early that the two-point second-half deficit didn’t matter.

As the announcers were talking earlier in the game, they said that most teams in the SEC don’t want to schedule Samford despite them being from SEC territory. They know just how dangerous this team is and they don’t want to take any chances and come up with a loss in a pay game. But Michigan State decided to schedule the team that went 29-6 last year and took Kansas down to the wire in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

It’s clear that this could very well be a tournament team. They just don’t go away and they press for 40 minutes.

Fortunately, Michigan State overcame the early uppercuts that the Bulldogs were landing and came away with an eight-point win while leading by 8-12 for most of the second half. This game was the perfect test for this team and it’ll help when it comes time for March.