Michigan State upsets Illinois

(REUTERS) — The Michigan State Spartans (12-8, 4-4) sent a reminder to anyone who might have forgotten about them.

Paul Davis scored a career-high 15 points, and Alan Anderson had 15 as the Spartans rallied from a big first-half deficit to beat No. 13 Illinois (15-4, 5-3) 68-65 Sunday.

Michigan State has won two straight — both against ranked teams — after losing six of eight in its worst slump since 1996-97, Tom Izzo’s second season as coach.

“We’re getting moved off the respirator,” Izzo said. “We’re still in the critical area, no doubt about that, but it’s nice to feel good about yourself.”

Michigan State trailed by 14 with two minutes left in the first half and won the game by outscoring Illinois 9-3 over the final five minutes.

“We’re on cloud nine, especially doing this after a great win against Indiana,” Davis said. “Winning these two games is what we needed to prove to ourselves how good we are.”

After beating the No. 19 Hoosiers Tuesday night, Izzo proclaimed, “We ain’t dead yet.”

The Fighting Illini had won three straight and seven of nine. Brian Cook, who came in as the Big Ten’s leading scorer, was held to 13 points in 22 minutes because of foul trouble. He picked up his fourth foul with 11:57 to play.

“When you take 22 points out of the game, it’s going to hurt,” Illinois coach Bill Self said. “But you’ve got to make shots, and we didn’t in the second half.”

After the Illini made 53.6 percent of their shots in the first half, they shot 33.3 percent in the second.

Michigan State took its first lead at 45-44 on Maurice Ager’s 3-pointer with 14:27 left. There were five lead changes and two ties over the next eight-plus minutes.

Sean Harrington’s 3-pointer with 6:02 left put Illinois ahead 60-59. Michigan State’s Kelvin Torbert made two free throws for a 61-60 lead with 2:36 left, and Davis ended a Spartans’ field-goal drought of more than five minutes with an 18-foot jumper to put them ahead 65-62 with 1:52 left.

After fouling out Aloysius Anagonye, Cook’s two free throws with 1:24 left were Illinois’ first points in nearly four minutes.

Chris Hill’s 3-pointer with 59 seconds left put Michigan State ahead 68-64 and essentially sealed the win.

“Coach told us exactly what they were going to do, and they did it,” Illinois’ Deron Williams said.

Illinois missed an opportunity to become the first team to win two-straight games in the Breslin Center since Purdue did it during the 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons. Since the start of the 1998-99 season, Michigan State has won 69 of 72 games at home.

“I don’t want to say it slipped through our hands, but we had a golden opportunity to win in a place that not many teams do,” Self said.

Illinois led 15-2 six minutes into the game as the Spartans missed five of their first six shots and committed six turnovers. Michigan State then outscored the Illini 11-3 to pull within five, only to watch Brown score six-straight points in less than 40 seconds.

The Spartans closed the half with a 10-4 run — capped by Anderson’s 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer — over the final two minutes to cut the deficit to 40-34.

Self argued with the officials that the shot wasn’t released before time expired, and replays showed he might have been correct, but the call stood.

By rule, only plays at the end of the second half or overtime can be reviewed on a television monitor.

“To play as well as we did in the first half, that was certainly a momentum-crusher,” Self said. “It was a bang-bang play. It could’ve gone either way.”

Anderson grinned when asked about the play.

“The refs called it good, so it was good, I guess,” he said.