Michigan State Basketball: 3 quick reactions from clutch win over Minnesota

After a canceled game this weekend against in-state rival Michigan, Michigan State basketball came back home to take on Minnesota. What happened?

Michigan State basketball was not able to play a game this weekend due to Michigan going on a COVID-19 pause. They had a little extra time to get ready for Minnesota which came to town on Wednesday. For the first 15 minutes of the game, it appeared that the Spartans were going to just run away and win by 15 points.

Then Minnesota came back and hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer right before halftime to cut the Spartans’ lead to just three. At the start of the second half, Minnesota brought the game within one and from there they gave everything they had to the Spartans.

They took the lead a couple of different times but the Spartans always had an answer.

With 2:30 left in the game, Max Christie made a jumper to give the Spartans a five-point lead. After that shot, though, the Spartans could not conjure any offense. Minnesota fought back and was able to tie the game on two free throws with only 25 seconds left.

Michigan State then took it up the floor and called it a timeout.

After the timeout, the Spartans inbounded to AJ Hoggard. It appeared the ball was supposed to go to Gabe Brown but with the tight defense, Hoggard had to give it up to Christie who had nowhere to go with it until AJ made a nice cut to the basket. The defense converged and Hoggard gave it up to Joey Hauser who made a buzzer-beating layup in traffic to give the Spartans the 71-69 victory.

It was a tight game all throughout the second half and Michigan State came away with the victory but here are my three quick reactions from the shaky game.