The Michigan State men's basketball team survived a scare from the upset-minded Bowling Green Falcons, winning by a final score of 86-72 on Saturday evening.
Michigan State head Tom Izzo and his staff faced off against Bowling Green head coach Todd Simon, a Michigan native, and associate head coach Lourawls "Tum Tum" Nairn Jr., who of course played under Izzo at MSU from 2014 until 2018.
Perhaps the final score does not indicate how competitive of a contest this was, as Bowling Green challenged MSU for much of the game.
The Spartans improve their record to 3-1 on the young 2024-2025 season, while the Falcons fall to 1-3 overall on the campaign.
Michigan State opened the scoring for the game, as center Szymon Zapala made a dunk off of the assist from point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. Bowling Green immediately responded with a 6-0 run, including a jumper and layup from forward Marcus Johnson, and a jumper from guard Javontae Campbell.
Michigan State guard Jaden Akins got the Spartans back on the board with a jumper from the paint, but Johnson responded with a 3-pointer to put the Falcons up 9-4.
The Falcons stayed hot from there, and took a 17-9 lead at the first media timeout of the game, following a second-chance basket in the paint by forward Youssef Khayat after an offensive rebound.
At the under-12-minute media timeout, the Falcons still held a lead over the Spartans, 24-20.
The two teams continued to go back and forth, and the Falcons went on an 8-4 run during the next roughly four-minute stretch to take a 32-24 lead at the under-eight-minute timeout.
After that, Bowling Green went on another 8-4 run and extended its lead to 12 points, 40-28, at the under-four-minute media timeout.
Later in the first half, the Falcons took a 43-33 lead with 2:41 left before halftime, following a pair of free throws by Khayat. Michigan State went on an impressive 10-0 surge from that point to close out the first stanza.
A second-chance jumper from Akins, a layup and a pair of free throws by center Carson Cooper, a dunk by forward Coen Carr and a layup by guard Tre Holloman helped the Spartans tie the game at 43-43 going into halftime.
Holloman led the Spartans at halftime with 11 points, and he was plus-13 while he was on the court for MSU in the first half.
Akins contributed eight points, five rebounds and four assists in the first 20 minutes of play.
Johnson led the Falcons with 13 points on 6-for-12 shooting (50%) at the half, while also recording three rebounds and two assists.
Michigan State shot 16-for-32 (50%) from the field in the first half, and was 2-for-9 (22.2%) from 3-point range. Bowling Green shot an impressive 17-for-31 (54.8%), and made three of its 13 attempts from beyond the arc (23.1%).
MSU slightly out-rebounded Bowling Green by a tally of 17-14 going into the break.
The second half was closely contested as well.
After Johnson hit a pair of free throws to begin the second half, Michigan State reeled off seven-straight points with a layup from forward/center Jaxon Kohler, a 3-pointer from Fears and two free throws from forward Frankie Fidler. The Spartans led 50-45 with 17:21 remaining to play.
The teams continued to trade buckets, and following a 3-pointer from Bowling Green forward Sam Towns to cut into the deficit, the Spartans had a two-point lead 52-50, at the under-16-minute media timeout of the second half.
Bowling Green had a strong four-minute stretch after that. Towns hit another 3-pointer with 11:59 remaining, securing a six-point lead for the Falcons. That was part of a 12-6 run ahead of the next media timeout to put the Falcons up 62-56 with 11:34 left on the clock.
The Falcons scored the next bucket as well, on a second-chance layup by big man Jamai Felt, taking a commanding eight-point lead at 64-56 with 10:53 still to play.
Michigan State made its move, scoring 10 points in a row to take the lead at 66-64 with 9:35 on the clock. The Spartans received two free throws from Fidler, four free throws from Kohler and two impressive dunks by Carr to get the Breslin Center crowd energized.
The Falcons finally stopped the Spartans' run with a basket in the paint by Johnson to tie things up at 66-66 with 8:50 to play. Kohler answered with a pair of free throws, and then back-to-back buckets by Johnson and Campbell gave Bowling Green the lead back, 70-68, with 7:30 left on the clock at the media timeout.
After the timeout, Campbell extended the Falcons' lead to 72-68 with a pair of free throws at the 7:11 mark. That would be the last time Bowling Green scored on the night, however.
Cooper responded with a dunk and Carr made one of his two free-throw attempts, and then a second-chance layup, to give MSU the lead back. The Spartans led 73-72 with 6:11 to play in the game.
Michigan State ran away with it from that point forward. A tip-in dunk by Carr and a 3-pointer from Akins catalyzed a final 18-0 run for the Spartans, as MSU won by the aforementioned final score of 86-72.
Akins recorded the first double-double of his career and led Michigan State with 13 points and 12 rebounds, while Fidler had 12 points (including 10 in the second half). Five other Spartans reached double-digits in scoring: Cooper (12), Carr (11, including nine in the second half), Holloman (11), Kohler (10) and Fears (10).
Johnson led Bowling Green in scoring with an impressive 23-point outing to go along with five rebounds and two assists. Campbell had 14 points and four boards. Khayat chipped in 13 points.
Michigan State's shooting struggles from 3-point range continued in this game. The Spartans made just four out of their 20 shots from beyond the arc (20%). Overall, MSU shot 27-for-59 (46%) and 28-for-32 from the free-throw line (88%).
The Falcons shot 27-for-62 from the field (44%), and just 5-for-26 from 3-point range (19%). Bowling Green made 13 of its 14 attempts the free-throw line (93%).
MSU out-rebounded Bowling Green 42-28.
Next up for Michigan State, the Spartans will host Samford on Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. The game will stream on Peacock.
Video Recap via David Klein (DK)
