MSU basketball beats Louisville to reach the Sweet 16 | video analysis
Lansing State Journal columnist Graham Couch and Detroit Free Press beat writer Chris Solari discuss MSU’s NCAA tournament win over Louisville.
1. MSU played like a team determined to find out just how far it can go
BUFFALO, N.Y. — I don’t know if Michigan State is good enough to conquer what’s ahead next week. But the Spartans played like a team Saturday determined to make a go of it.
If MSU shoots like that, if Coen Carr plays like that, if Jeremy Fears continues to break assist records like that — this time the MSU NCAA tournament assist mark held previously by some guy named Magic — and if MSU defends like that, they’ll have a chance.
All of it was too much for 6-seed Louisville on Saturday in the second round of the NCAA tournament. After taking the lead early, MSU led wire to wire, but never comfortably, in a 77-69 win that sends the Spartans to the Sweet 16 for the third time in four years, “where this program belongs,” as Tom Izzo said afterward.
Oakland coach Greg Kampe said it well just before Christmas — that MSU was as good as anyone his team had faced up to that point (which included Michigan, Houston and Purdue), but the Spartans’ season would come down to whether they made shots in the NCAA tournament. The Spartans hit 11 of 26 3s on Saturday and started much faster than that.
Trey Fort, Kur Teng, Jaxon Kohler and Carr all hit at least two 3s. Fort had three of them. More on him below.
That’ll do.
Fears’ 16 assists broke Magic Johnson’s MSU NCAA mark of 14. They were also a KeyBank Center building record, held previously by Temple’s Pepe Sanchez set in the 2000 NCAA tournament. Izzo smirked at the name, remembering Sanchez beating the Spartans a season earlier in Philadelphia.
“It’s tear-jerking for me,” Izzo said of the game. “Because I’m watching guys grow up in front of me.”
Louisville made 13 3s, but had to take 37 of them to get there. MSU was the better team on the glass, including some notable work on the offensive glass in the second half.
We’ll find out how good this team is next weekend in Washington, D.C — first against UConn or UCLA in the Sweet 16. But it’s earned the right to find out.
2. When Coen Carr plays — and rebounds — like that, he’s really valuable
Forget for a moment watching Coen Carr glide through the air for a one-handed dunk early in the second half, jumping from a place that makes you wonder if he’s going to make it to the basket. OK, that’s tough to forget. And it was an important two points as MSU was trying to take control.
But that version of Coen Carr is every game. You can count on it. It swings momentum and makes the hairs stand up on your arms. The version we saw Saturday is one that changes who MSU is as a team.
Carr had the best game of his career Saturday, with 21 points, 10 rebounds, two blocks and a steal in 33 minutes. The two free throws he missed in the final minute kept him from a career high in scoring He hit 2 of 4 3-point tries — important shots, too. There weren’t many that weren’t important in this game. But Carr impacted this game most with his physicality, with how he attacked the glass, with an emphatic block and rebound at a key juncture late in the second half, by spending a lot of the game defending and dogging Louisville’s best player, guard Ryan Conwell.
Carr’s 10 rebounds were a career high. This is the rebounder Tom Izzo has been begging him to be. This was a guy maximizing his physical abilities to get MSU to the Sweet 16.
“Coen Carr played like the player we’ve all been waiting for,” Izzo said.
3. The Trey Fort renaissance continues
I don’t know that anything Trey Fort does this NCAA tournament can entirely erase the disappointment of a lone season at MSU that included 18 games where he played single-digit minutes or not at all, after beginning the season as the Spartans’ starting shooting guard. But he’s going to leave MSU with a very different lasting memory. And be remembered differently than if his postseason had continued the way of his regular season.
Fort’s postseason renaissance continued Saturday, with 12 more points, an assist, a steal and a season-high five rebounds in 19 minutes, the most he’s played since Nov. 27 against North Carolina.
Fort, who spent a lot of the season buried on the depth chart behind the emergence of freshman Jordan Scott and short on trust from the coaching staff, has become an important part of MSU’s postseason. He got an opportunity against UCLA, when nothing else was working, took advantage of it, and has only justified an expanded role since. He played the final 5:30 of Saturday’s win, with the season on the line. How’s that for being trusted?
He’s now played 13 minutes (against UCLA), 12 minutes (against North Dakota State) and 19 Saturday, with stretches of playing time in both halves, scoring 27 total points and hitting 6 of 9 3-point shots.
Fort’s case is the challenge for a certain type of one-year transfer for Tom Izzo. He arrived a bucket-getter rather than a system player and didn’t make enough buckets to be in that role. But you can see how much more disciplined he’s become in terms of when he lets it fly and when he moves the ball within the offense. And, importantly, he hasn’t lost that confident stroke.
He had a couple crucial buckets Saturday — a 3-pointer while being fouled at the top of the key that, after the free throw, put the Spartans up 31-23, helping MSU to keep Louisville at bay. And then, in the middle of the second half, with Louisville within three and the Spartans’ offense stalling a bit, he rose up over a defender and buried a triple from the right side to make it 53-47.
“I want to be a spark for my team,” Fort said. “I don’t want there to be any drop off when I get out there.”
There’s a lesson in how to handle disappointment here. Fort is a great example of it — never became a malcontent or quit working. Fort isn’t in the role he hoped for this season. But he’s a big part of this NCAA tournament. And MSU would have taken that when they signed him. And I think he’ll ultimately feel a lot better about things, too.
The smile on his face as he held the ball after the buzzer and pointed to a fan yelling his name in the stands said a lot.
“One thing my dad and just people behind me always told me, if you feel like you made it somewhere, start over,” Fort said. “I’ve had a lot of ups and downs, but it just keeps me going. There are challenges, but that should make you stronger. Should never fold when it comes to the ups and downs. Your team needs you, your coach needs you, and they just want what’s best for you.
“One thing I told the guys coming into this game, empty the tank and when we get home, we can get a new tank. You can’t leave anything out there unless you want to go home.”
Contact Graham Couch at [email protected]. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.
