Michigan State Basketball: 3 quick reactions from crushing loss to Illinois

Michigan State's Jaden Akins, left, and Marcus Bingham Jr., center, celebrate with Tyson Walker after Walker scored against Illinois during the second half Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022, at the Breslin Center in East Lansing.Syndication Lansing State Journal
Michigan State's Jaden Akins, left, and Marcus Bingham Jr., center, celebrate with Tyson Walker after Walker scored against Illinois during the second half Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022, at the Breslin Center in East Lansing.Syndication Lansing State Journal /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 4
Next

Michigan State basketball dug itself another hole against Illinois and once again fought back to come up just short of making a great comeback win.

Illinois traveled to East Lansing to take on the Michigan State Spartans in their second meeting of the year. The Spartans were looking for revenge after they lost by one, 56-55, in the first meeting.

Once again, though, the Spartans came up short at home and lost the game 79-74.

For the first 30 minutes of the game, it was all Illinois basketball and the Spartans could not be found. That is until Tyson Walker started to heat up and carried Michigan State back into it. Walker had 24 points in the second half but could not complete the rally late.

The other Spartans were nowhere to be found, other than AJ Hoggard. Gabe Brown was quiet all game and sat for most of the game. Max Christie was off offensively, Malik Hall couldn’t get anything to fall, and Marcus Bingham and Julius Marble struggled a bit trying to battle Kofi Cockburn down low.

Here are my three quick reactions to this game.