By all counts, the last 96 hours have provided the best four days in recent memory for Michigan State athletics.
Bookending this stretch of success are last weekend’s stunning football win over in-state rival Michigan and the basketball team’s Tuesday night takedown of second-ranked Duke at the Champions Classic in Chicago.
And oh by the way, in between came the MSU women’s soccer team also defeating Michigan to earn a spot in Friday’s BIG10 championship match at Purdue.
Reporting on Michigan State Spartans on SI, Jacob Cotsonika suggests that MSU sure looks like a basketball team without a ceiling following Tuesday’s win.
The fifth-ranked Spartans were underdogs against Duke but didn’t look the part. The Blue Devils never led. MSU seemed like the better, more cohesive team all night enroute to its 79-73 victory.
The win was fueled by point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. He finished with 18 points (15 in the second half), 7 rebounds and 11 assists. He also drew 12 Duke fouls and was 12 of 17 from the free throw line. The result is sweet revenge for the red-shirt junior, who went 0-for-10 from the field in Michigan State’s home loss to Duke last year.
This after being somewhat called out by head coach Tom Izzo following two relatively ordinary efforts in earlier games against Quinnipiac and Toledo.
“You’re given a rank, you have the responsibility to live up to that ranking,” Izzo told ESPN.com’s Jeff Borzello following Tuesday night’s victory.
Fears did just that, but he wasn’t alone in dispatching the Blue Devils. Sophomore forward Jordan Scott excelled on the defensive end with six blocked shots and nine rebounds. Fellow soph Cam Ward added 14 points and six rebounds. Freshman guard Jasiah Jervis was the third player in double figures with 10 points as 10 of the 11 Spartans who logged playing time scored.
ESPN’s Jay Bilas, who called the game with Dan Shulman, used the words “tough and together” to describe the Spartans’ performance Tuesday night. That’s also the textbook definition of “the Spartan way,” that was cited by first-year head football coach Pat Fitgerald following last weekend’s victory for MSU.
In his Monday press conference, Fitzgerald once again lauded “the total team effort” that led to MSU’s long-awaited win at Michigan. The Spartans hadn’t beaten the maize and blue since 2021.
“Our guys have stayed the course and they responded,” Fitzgerald said of the signature win, which came in the wake of a demoralizing six-game losing streak. “We’re not where we want to be with our win-loss record, but we’re trying to build this thing on a bedrock foundation and I think our guys have embodied that.”
Fitzgerald’s guys, with a record of 3-6, will next take the field Saturday afternoon to host Washington (5-4) needing three more wins to become bowl eligible.
As for Izzo and the MSU basketball team, they’ll host Northern Iowa on Friday night before traveling to Knoxville, Tenn., next Tuesday to meet No. 11 Tennessee. Also on Friday night, Michigan State and Purdue will square off in the BIG10 Championship game for women’s soccer as the Spartans hope to make the next four days as memorable as the last four have been.
Michigan State Basks in 4-Day Stretch of Success