BUFFALO, NY – Everyone knows March Madness is all about surviving and advancing.
Sometimes that means surviving your own mistakes and advancing to the next play after them. Just get to the next round, earn one more game and keep the dream of a national title alive.
And sometimes, it means being patient until that next-gear focus and willpower takes over.
Point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. broke the Michigan State basketball single-game NCAA Tournament assist record with 16 dimes as the 3-seed Spartans used a 16-6 burst and barrage from 3-point range to knock off 6-seed Louisville, 77-69, on Saturday, March 21, at KeyBank Center.
The win sends MSU (27-7) back to the second weekend for the second straight year and third time in the past four seasons. It also is Tom Izzo’s 17th trip to the Sweet 16 in his 28 consecutive berths.
The Spartans will face the winner of Sunday’s game between 2-seed Connecticut and 7-seed UCLA at Capital One Center in Washington, D.C., on Friday. Time and TV will be determined after Sunday’s second-round games.
After getting 11 assists in MSU’s opener, nine of them in the first half of a blowout win over North Dakota State, Fears continued his high-volume helping and finished with 16 to go with 12 points. Magic Johnson had 14 against Western Kentucky in 1978, along with games of 13 (Notre Dame) and 12 (LSU) during the 1979 national championship run.
Coen Carr grabbed a career-high 10 rebounds and scored 21 points, one off his personal best. Trey Fort delivered another spark off the bench with 12 points and three 3-pointers as the Spartans went 11-for-26 from beyond the arc.
Fears went just 3-for-13 from the field, but eight of the nine Spartans who played scored and grabbed a rebound, and six of his other seven teammates had at least one assist. Jaxon Kohler and Carson Cooper combined for 19 points and 11 rebounds.
And despite committing 16 turnovers, which led to 17 points for Louisville (24-11), MSU held the Cardinals to just 4-for-18 3-point shooting in the first half and 13-for-37 for the game.
Ryan Conwell scored 21 points and Adrian Wooley added 17 for Louisville.
Uneven start
MSU opened the game strong and sloppy all at once.
The Spartans got sucked into frantic play early against the Cardinals, who committed 22 turnovers and forced just nine in a first-round win over South Florida. Fears and Cooper combined for six of MSU’s nine first-half giveaways, which allowed Louisville to get out on offense in a hurry after them.
On the boards, the Cardinals’ long rebounds led to six offensive boards. But the Spartans outrebounded them 20-17 overall thanks to seven from Coen Carr and three apiece for Cooper, Kohler and Fort.
The surprises also helped MSU, with Cooper swishing an end-of-shot clock 3-pointer to give MSU a 10-point lead just past the midpoint of the half. And Fort’s finish to his senior NCAA Tournament continued with strong defense and his second straight game converting a four-point play with 3:46 left in the half.
While Fears struggled with turnovers and missing his first five shots, he also continued to orchestrate the Spartans’ offense with six assists. He delivered a lob to Carr for an alley-oop, followed by a 3-pointer for his only first-half basket with 2:16 to go.
However, Louisville remained pesky, with nine points from Conwell despite two early fouls and nine more from Wooley, all of them in a less than three-minute spurt late in the half to slice MSU’s lead to 36-31 heading to the locker room.
MSU went 7-for-14 from 3-point range, including two from Kur Teng, and had eight of its nine players who saw action score at least two points and seven contribute to 12 assists. The Spartans also held the Cardinals to 4-for-18 from 3-point range.
The F-words: Fort and Fears
MSU forced Louisville coach Pat Kelsey to call a timeout just 1:40 into the second half after a pair of Carr dunks got the crowd buzzing and put the Spartans ahead, 42-33. It looked like it could keep growing.
But the Cardinals started locking down the Spartans while struggling to score themselves. It took more than three minutes for Carr to get the next MSU points on a layup after its lead dipped to five.
Then when the Spartans needed buckets after the long scoring drought, they turned back to Fort. And the transfer, on his sixth different school in six seasons, continued a memory-making March in his first NCAA Tournament.
The 6-foot-4 guard again got hit on a 3-pointer with no call, and it fluttered through the net off Fears’ 10th assist. Then as Fears pushed the ball up court and MSU’s lead had dwindled to 50-47, he flicked it on again to Fort and urged him to launch a heat-check that burned the twine again as he tumbled to the court with no whistle.
Fears bookended Fort’s third 3-pointer with an elbow jumper and a driving layup that extended the Spartans’ lead back to eight. The All-American third-year sophomore at one point either assisted or scored on 10 of MSU’s first 11 second-half baskets.
Fears got his 13th assist on a five-point possession for Kohler, who knocked down a 3-pointer after two free throws for a flagrant foul by the Cardinals. Fears then tied the record with a kick to Carr in the corner, who drilled a 3-pointer with 4:46 to play.
Then with just under 2 minutes to play and Louisville running a full-court press, Fears took off running. Cooper followed him in stride. Fears kept his balance as his feet got tangled with a Cardinals defender, then lobbed a perfect pass that Cooper threw down with a fury to break Magic’s mark.
An emphatic exclamation point to punctuate another trip to the Sweet 16.
“See y’all in D.C.,” Fears said as he left the locker room for his postgame press conference
What’s next
The Spartans return to the Sweet 16 for the 23rd time in program history and the first time in Washington D.C. since Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman helped lead Izzo to the 2019 Final Four with a thrilling Elite Eight victory over Duke. Izzo has advanced to the Elite Eight 11 times in his 16 previous Sweet 16 trips, most recently last season. His eight Final Four berths are the most among active Division I coaches and fifth-most all-time.
Contact Chris Solari:csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Coen Carr owns the moment, lifts Michigan State to Sweet 16 vs Louisville 77-69
Reporting by Chris Solari, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
