Tipped pass leads to Michigan State alley-oop vs Maryland

The Maryland men’s basketball team was outworked, outrebounded and outrun for the majority of its January 23 tilt at No. 11 Michigan State.

Michigan State kept the lead early in the second half because of hot shooting by Bryn Forbes, who had been in a slump before Saturday. Denzel Valentine leads Spartans averaging 18.3 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 6.6 assists per game. Maryland comes into the game at 17-2 (6-1) and ranked seventh in the nation while Michigan State comes in at 16-4 (3-4) and ranked 11th in the nation.

Regardless of the credit/blame distribution, it was 28 points for Shields on Wednesday night in a 72-71 Nebraska victory, giving the host Spartans their third straight loss.

Michigan State is in the midst of its first three-game conference losing streak since 2012-13, when it lost to Indiana, Ohio State and Michigan.

One of the biggest stories of the opening half was Maryland’s inability to rebound. Michigan State will do this to you, as the Terps saw firsthand last season, when they led 17-14 at halftime of the teams’ first meeting last season. Here’s a look at Maryland-Michigan State, Oklahoma-Baylor and several other intriguing Saturday matchups. Things got better at the end of the half with both teams over 35 percent shooting, but Mark Turgeon was not happy with his team’s consistent acceptance in settling for jump shots. “We have to be better, no matter how good they are”.

Maryland ranks inside the Top 25 nationally in adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency this season, the Spartans rank 50th in the defensive category there.

Like Wisconsin, Nebraska has essentially no postseason hopes at this point, but like Nebraska, they are keeping their heads down and getting big wins, particularly over Michigan State. Now Sparty has to play a hungry Maryland team looking to remain close to the top of the Big Ten. Despite Trimble’s big game, the Terps were clearly flustered offensively. Rasheed Sulaimon and Jake Layman combined for just four made field goals on 20 attempts and when Diamond Stone makes one bucket that is not going to cut it. The crowd in East Lansing rose to their feet after what looked like a bad play turned into a huge momentum boost for the Spartans. Valentine has scored 23 and 24 points respectively in the last two games and the Spartans will need another big game from him on Saturday. Carter was responsible for nine of Maryland’s points during that stretch.

Coming off of three consecutive losses, the Spartans came out with more energy than they have in perhaps a month. On the season the freshman is averaging two blocks per game and Davis’ continued growth is a big key to Michigan State’s success this season.