Michigan State Basketball: 3 takeaways from buzzer-beating win over Minnesota

Michigan State basketball needed all 40 minutes to pull off a win over Minnesota for the second time this season. What’d we learn?

Minnesota is pesky. And I mean that in the most complimentary way possible because Ben Johnson has that team playing well and they nearly pulled off the upset over Michigan State basketball in East Lansing on Wednesday night, 71-69.

The Spartans and Gophers went back and forth for most of the night with Michigan State leading most of the way, but Minnesota found a way to make things interesting, hitting some key shots down the stretch and picking up some offensive rebounds to get second-chance buckets.

In the end, it was a Joey Hauser buzzer-beater that won it for the Spartans as a set play out of a timeout set up a beautiful pass from AJ Hoggard for a clean look at the rim.

With the win, Michigan State improves to 14-2 and 5-0 in conference play, tied with Illinois at the top of the Big Ten, and the Spartans are now responsible for two of Minnesota’s four losses.

What’d we learn from this one?

3. MSU gave up way too many second-chance points

If Michigan State is going to make a serious run at the Big Ten title, what we saw on Wednesday night can’t happen again. The Spartans can’t get bullied on the glass like they did.

Minnesota absolutely out-toughed the Spartans throughout the game and dominated the offensive glass, grabbing 12 offensive boards and scoring 17 second-chance points. It was the perfect recipe for an upset and that’s why Minnesota was able to hang around.

Tom Izzo needs to correct this moving forward because the Spartans aren’t going to beat many top teams by giving up offensive rebounds at a high rate.

Maybe the war drill is in order before Saturday’s matchup with Northwestern.