A huge lead with less than two minutes to play looked to seal a nice second-half finish by Michigan State against Rutgers on Senior Day. All five Spartan seniors looked like they were about to get subbed out one final time to kiss the logo at midcourt like the dozens of teams before them had.
Jaxon Kohler stepped to the line to hit a couple of free throws and Michigan State was up by 15 with under two minutes to play.
The crowd started to sense Senior Day coming to a close and you could almost feel the emotion in the air after those two Kohler free throws, likely his last at the Breslin Center.
Tom Izzo decided to sub Trey Fort, Nick Sanders, and Denham Wojcik in so he could get them all to kiss the logo like Carson Cooper and Kohler. It was a cool moment.
Until it wasn’t.
Wojcik, Sanders, and Fort all struggled to get the ball inbounds and a 15-point lead melted down to eight in seconds. That lead melted down to four, and then two. Thankfully, two big free throws by Jeremy Fears with three seconds left put the game away for good, but it never should have gotten to that point, and Izzo will tell you that he probably won’t be doing that again.
This wasn’t Izzo’s fault for trying to honor his seniors, but he probably won’t do so with end-of-bench and walk-on seniors again at the same time for a while. That nearly cost the Spartans a win.
At this point in the season, a loss to Rutgers may not ultimately mean much, but those end-of-game meltdowns are what you try to avoid as a head coach. Teams that crumble under the late-game pressure like Michigan State did usually don’t last long in March. Thankfully it was due to backups not being able to inbound the ball and Rutgers not missing a single shot. It was a perfect storm.
Fortunately, Michigan State avoided the dreaded 2023 Iowa meltdown where the Spartans gave up a double-digit lead in a minute and lost in overtime to the Hawkeyes.
This may not feel like a win, but that’s only because Cooper and Kohler’s Senior Day tradition was ruined.